HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
By PHILIP SCHAFF. D.D.. LL.D.
Vol. I. Apostolic Christianity. A.D. I - 1 00. 8vo, $4.00
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Vol. III. Nicene and Pott-Nicene Christianity,
A.D. 311-600. 8vo. . . . $4.00
Vol. IV. Mediaeval Christianity, A.D. 590-1073,
8vo. $4.00
Vol. V. Parti. The Middle Ages. By David S.
Schaff. D.D. 8vo. . . . net $3.25
Postage additional
Vol. V. Part II. The Middle Ages. By DavidS.
Schaff. D.D. (7/ifW.) .
Vol. VI. Modem Christianity The German Refor-
mation. 8vo $4.00
Vd. VII. The Swiss Reformation. 8vo, . $4.00
OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
BY
PHILIP SCHAFF
Christianus sum. Christiani nihil a me alienum puto
VOLUME V. PART I
THE MIDDLE AGES
FROM GREGORY VII., 1049, TO BONIFACE VIIL, 1294
BY
DAVID S. SCHAFF, D.D.
PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE WESTERN
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ALLEGHENY
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1907
\
*
COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1907
tfje
REV. WILLIAM O. CAMPBELL, D.D.
REV. JAMES H. SNOWDEN, U.D.
REV. JESSE C. BRUCE, D.D.
AND THE OTHER MEMBERS
OF THE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF
THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
THIS VOLUME
ON MEDIAEVAL CHURCH HISTORY
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
AS A MARK OF APPRECIATION FOR THE HONOR CONFERRED
UPON THE AUTHOR IN HIS ELECTION TO THE
CHAIR OF CHURCH HISTORY, 1903
PREFACE.
IT was the constant hope of Dr. Philip Schaff, the author of the
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, that he might live to finish the
treatment of the Middle Ages, to which he had devoted one volume,
covering the years 600-1050. He frequently said, during the last years
of his life, "If I am able to accomplish this, my HISTORY OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH will be measurably complete and I will be satisfied
then to stop." He entered upon the task and had completed his studies
on the pontificates of Gregory VII. and Alexander III., when his pen
was laid aside and death overtook him, Oct. 20, 1893. The two volumes
found lying open on his study table, as he had left them the day before,
Jeremy Taylor's HOLY LIVING AND HOLY DYING and a volume of
Hurter's LIFE OF INNOCENT III., showed the nature of his thoughts
in his last hours.
Dr. Schaff's distinction as a writer on Church History dated from the
year 1851 when his HISTORY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH appeared,
first in its original German form, Mercersburg, Pa., pp. xvi, 576, and
Leipzig, 1853, and then in English translation, New York and Edin-
burgh, 1853, 1854. Before that time, he had shown his taste for
historical studies in his tract on WHAT is CHURCH HISTORY? translated
by Dr. John W. Nevin, Phila., 1846, pp. 128, and the address on the PRIN-
CIPLE OF PROTESTANTISM, which he delivered at his inauguration as
professor in the theological seminary at Mercersburg, 1844. This address
was published in its German form and in an English translation by Dr.
Nevin, Chambersburg, 1845.
Dr. Schaff continued his publications in this department with the issue
of his HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 1-600, in 2 volumes,
N.Y., 1858-1867. In the meantime, his attention had been called to the
subjects of biblical literature and exegesis, and his labors resulted in
the publication of the American edition of Lange's Commentary in 25
volumes and other works. In 1887 he issued his CREEDS OF CHRISTEN-
DOM in 3 volumes. Left free to devote himself to the continuation of his
HISTORY, which he was inclined to regard as his chief literary work, he
found it necessary, in order to keep abreast of the times and to present a
fresh treatment, to begin his studies again at the very beginning and con-
sequently the series, to which this volume belongs, is an independent work
written afresh and differing in marked features from its predecessors.
For example, the first volume, on the Apostolic age, devotes an extensive
treatment to the authorship and dates of the Apostolic writings to which
Vlll PREFACE.
scarcely any space was given in the HISTORY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH
of 1851 and the HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH of 1858-1867.
The treatment was demanded by the new attitude of scholarship to the
questions presented by the Apostolic age.
Dr. Schaff lived to prepare six volumes of this new work, three on
early Christianity, one on mediaeval Christianity, and two on the Prot-
estant Reformation. It is of some interest that Dr. Schaff' s last writing
was a pamphlet on the Reunion of Christendom, pp. 71, a subject which
he treated with warm practical sympathy and with materials furnished
by the studies of the historian. The substance of the pamphlet had been
used as a paper read before the Parliament of Religions at the Colum-
bian Exposition, Chicago. It was a great satisfaction to him to have
the Faculty of the Berlin University, where he had spent part of his
student life, 1840-1841, and which had conferred on him the doctorate
of divinity in 1854, bear testimony in their congratulatory letter on
the semicentennial of his professorial career that his " HISTORY OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH is the most notable monument of universal histori-
cal learning produced by the school of Neander" (LIFE OF PHILIP
SCHAFF, p. 467).
The further treatment of the Middle Ages, Dr. Schaff left to his son,
the author of this volume. It was deemed by him best to begin the
work anew, using the materials Dr. Schaff had left as the basis of the
first four chapters.
The delay in the issue of the present volume is due chiefly to the
requirements of study and in part to the difficulty in getting all the
necessary literature. The author has felt unwilling to issue the volume
without giving to it as thorough study as it was possible for him to give.
This meant that he should familiarize himself not only with the mediaeval
writings themselves but with the vast amount of research which has
been devoted to the Middle Ages during the last quarter of a century
and more. As for the literature, not a little of it has been, until recently,
inaccessible to the student in this country. At Lane seminary, where
the author was a professor, he found in the library an unusually well
selected collection of works on the mediaeval period made fifty years ago
by the wise judgment of two of its professors, Calvin E. Stowe and the
late George E. Day, who made tours in Europe for the purpose of making
purchases for its shelves. He also owes a debt to the Rev. Dr. Henry
Goodwin Smith, for some time professor in the seminary and its libra-
rian, for his liberal use of the library funds in supplementing the works
in the mediaeval department. In passing, it may be also said that the
Cincinnati Public Library, by reason of a large permanent fund given
more than a half century ago for the purchase of theological works and
by the wise selection of such men as Professor George E. Day, is unusu-
ally rich in works for the historical student, some of which may perhaps
not be duplicated in this country.
PREFACE. IX
On removing to the Western Theological seminary, the author found
its librarian, Professor James A. Kelso, most ready to fill up the shelves
of the mediaeval department so that it now possesses all the more im-
portant works both original and secondary. To the librarians of the
two Roman Catholic libraries of Cincinnati and "to other librarians the
author is indebted for the courtesy of the free use of their collections.
An explanation is due for devoting an entire volume to the middle
period of the Middle Ages, 1050-1294, when it was the intention of
Dr. Philip Schaff to embrace it and the third period of the Middle Ages,
1294-1517, in a single volume. It is doubtful whether Dr. Schaff, after
proceeding with his studies, would have thought it wise to attempt to
execute his original purpose. However this might have been, to have
confined the treatment of 500 years to the limits of a single volume would
have meant to do a relative injustice and, in the light of recent study, to
have missed a proper proportion. To the first 600 years, 1-590, the
HISTORY devotes three volumes. Dr. Schaff intended to devote three
volumes to the Protestant Reformation, two of which he lived to prepare.
The intervening 900 years deserve an equal amount of space. The period
covered by this volume is of great importance. Here belong the Cru-
sades, the rejuvenation of monasticism by the mendicant orders, the
development of the canon law, the rise of the universities, the determined
struggles of the papacy with the empire, the development of the Inquisi-
tion, the settlement of the sacramental system, and some of the most
notable characters the Christian Church has produced. No one can fully
understand the spirit and doctrinal system of the Roman communion
without knowing this period. Nor can any one, without such knowl-
edge, fully understand the meaning of the Protestant Reformation, for
the Reformation was a protest against the mediaeval theology and medias-
val practices. The best evidence for the truth of the latter statement is
found in the work of the learned Dominican Denifle, entitled Luther und
Lutherthum, and the Protestant rejoinders to its assaults.
A partial list of the more modern works show the amount of study that
has recently been spent upon this period. Among the great collections
of mediaeval documents, besides the older ones by Mabillon, Muratori,
and Migne, are the MONUMENTA GERMANIC, intended to give an ex-
haustive collection of mediaeval German writers, the series of collections
of the papal documents called the RKGKSTA, edited by Jaffe', Potthast,
Auvray, Berger, and others, the CHARTULARIUM UNIVERSITATIS PARI-
SIENSIS, a collection of documents edited by Denifle and Chatelain of the
highest importance for the study of the university system, the RECUEIL
DES HISTORIENS DBS CRUSADES, the remarkable collection of mediaeval
sacred poetry edited by Dreves and Blume filling about 15 volumes, the
Boehmer-Friedberg edition of the Canon Law, and the Rolls Series, con-
taining the writers of mediaeval England. To such works must be
added the new editions of Schoolmen, Albertus Magnus by Borgnet,
X PREB^ACE.
Bonaveutura by Peltier, Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and the
editions of such writers as Caesar of Heisterbach, De Voragine, Salimbene,
and Etienne de Bourbon. Among the recent students who have made a
specialty of this period are Giesebrecht, Gregorovius, Scheffer-Boichorst,
Karl Muller, Hauck, Deutsch, Lempp, and other Protestants of Germany,
and among German Catholic scholars Dollinger, Father Denifle, Ehrle,
Knopfler, Schwane, Schulte, Funk, and Felder. In France we have
Rmusat, Haureau, Chevalier, Vacandard, Sabatier, Alphandery. In
England and America, we have Dr. Henry Charles Lea, who deserves
to be mentioned first, the late Bp. Stubbs, R. L. Poole, Rashdall, Bridges,
the editors of the Rolls Series, such as Brewer and Luard, and Prof. D. C.
Munro, O. T. Thatcher, and Shailer Mathews.
Except in rare cases, the quotations are taken from the original works,
whether they were written in the Middle Ages or are modern discussions.
An exception is the History of the City of Rome by Gregorovius. It has
required severe discipline to check the inclination to extend the notes to
a far greater length than they have been carried, especially in such chap-
ters as those on the sacramental system and the Schoolmen. In the
tables of literature, the more important modern works have at times
been indicated by a star, *.
In the preparation of the volume for the press, efficient aid has been
rendered by the Rev. David E. Culley, fellow and tutor in the Western
Theological seminary, whose literary and historical tastes and sober
judgment have been confirmed by studies abroad.
The second part of this volume, carrying the history from Boniface VIII.
to the Reformation, is in an advanced stage of preparation.
In closing, the author indulges the hope that Dr. Philip Schaff's
spirit of toleration may be found permeating this volume, and its gen-
eral historic judgments to be such as Dr. Schaff himself would have
expressed.
DAVID S. SCHAFF.
THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,
ALLEGHENY, PA.
CONTENTS.
FROM GREGORY VII. TO BONIFACE VIII. 1049 TO 1294.
PAGE
1. GENERAL LITERATURE 1
2. INTRODUCTORY SURVEY ........ 3
CHAPTER I. THE HILDEBRANDIAN POPES. 1049-1078.
3. SOURCES AND LITERATURE ON CHAPTERS I. AND II. . . . 7
4. HlLDEBRAND AND HIS TRAINING ....... 9
5. HlLDEBRAND AND LEO IX. 1049-1054 13
6. VICTOR II. AND STEPHEN IX. (X.) 1055-1058 .... 15
7. NICOLAS II. AND THE CARDINALS. 1059-1061 . ... 16
8. THE WAR AGAINST CLERICAL MARRIAGE ..... 20
9. ALEXANDER II. AND THE SCHISM OF CADALUS. 1061-1073 . 21
CHAPTER II. GREGORY VII. 1073-1085.
10. HlLDEBRAND ELECTED POPE. HlS VlEWS ON THE SITUATION . 24
11. THE GREGORIAN THEOCRACY ....... 27
12. GREGORY VII. AS A MORAL REFORMER . . . .36
13. THE ENFORCEMENT OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY .... 39
14. THE WAR OVER INVESTITURE ....... 45
15. GREGORY VII. AND HENRY IV 47
16. CANOSSA. 1077 .53
17. RENEWAL OF THE CONFLICT. Two KINGS AND Two POPES . 59
18. DEATH OF GREGORY VII 64
CHAPTER III. THE PAPACY FROM THE DEATH OF GREGORY
VII. TO THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS. 1085-1122.
19. VICTOR III. AND URBAN II. 1086-1099 70
20. PASCAL II. AND HENRY V. 1099-1118 . . . . .73
21. THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS. 1122 77
22. THE CONFLICT OF THE HIERARCHY IN ENGLAND ... 80
23. WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM ....... 87
24. ANSELM AND HENRY I. 90
CHAPTER IV. THE PAPACY FROM THE CONCORDAT OF
WORMS TO INNOCENT III. 1122-1198.
25. INNOCENT II. AND EUGENIUS III. 94
26. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA ......... 96
27. THE POPES AND THE HOHENSTAUFEN 102
28. ADRIAN IV. AND FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 105
29. ALEXANDER III. IN CONFLICT WITH BARBAROSSA. . . . 110
30. THK PEACE OF VENICE. 1177 115
31. THOMAS BECKET AND HENRY II. OF ENGLAND .... 120
xi
Xll CONTENTS.
PAGE
32.
THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE KING ......
128
33.
THE MARTYRDOM OF THOMAS BECKET. DEC. 29, 1170
140
34.
THE EFFECTS OF BECKET'S MURDER
144
CHAPTER V. INNOCENT III. AND HIS AGE. 1198-1216.
35.
LITERATURE . . .
151
3 "-"
36.
INNOCENT'S TRAINING AND ELECTION ......
162
37.
INNOCENT'S THEORY OF THE PAPACY ......
156
38.
INNOCENT AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE
160
39.
INNOCENT AND KING JOHN OF ENGLAND .....
165
40.
INNOCENT AND MAGNA CHARTA .......
171
41.
THE FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL, 1215 .....
174
CHAPTER VI. THE PAPACY FROM THE DEATH OP INNOCENT III.
TO BONIFACE VIII. 1216-1294.
42.
THE PAPAL CONFLICT WITH FREDERICK II. BEGUN .
181
43.
GREGORY IX. AND FREDERICK II. 1227-1241 ....
184
44.
THE CLOSE OF FREDERICK'S CAREER. 1250 ....
190
45.
THE LAST OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN
199
46.
THE EMPIRE AND PAPACY AT PEACE. 1271-1294
203
CHAPTER VII. THE CRUSADES.
47.
LITERATURE ON THE CRUSADES AS A WHOLE ....
211
48.
CHARACTER AND CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES ....
214
49.
THE CALL TO THE CRUSADES .......
224
60.
THE FIRST CRUSADE AND THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM .
231
51.
THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 1099-1187
246
52.
THE FALL OF EDESSA AND THE SECOND CRUSADE
252
53.
THE THIRD CRUSADE. 1189-1192
256
54.
THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADES ........
266
55.
THE FOURTH CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE
268
56.
FREDERICK II. AND THE FIFTH CRUSADE. 1229
278
57.
ST. Louis AND THE LAST CRUSADES. 1248, 1270
281
58.
LAST STRONGHOLD OF THE CRUSADERS IN PALESTINE
286
59.
EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES .
289
60.
THE MILITARY ORDERS
295
CHAPTER VIII. THE MONASTIC ORDERS.
61.
THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM
308
62.
MONASTICISM AND THE PAPACY
325
63.
THE MONKS OF CLUNY .
330
64.
337
V
65.
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX .......
342
66.
358
o v>
67.
370
o '
68.
379
O vv
69.
389
70.
394
O '
5 71.
408
' A *
72.
ST. DOMINIC AND THE DOMINICANS
419
CONTEXTS. xiii
CHAPTER IX. MISSIONS.
PAGE
73.
LITERATURE AND GENERAL SURVEY .....
. 427
74.
MISSIONS IN NORTHEASTERN GERMANY ....
. 429
75.
MISSIONS AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS ....
. 433
76.
MISSIONS AMONG THE MONGOLS ......
. 437
K 77
THE JEWS ...
442
8 '
CHAPTER X. HERESY AND ITS SUPPRESSION.
78.
LITERATURE FOR THE ENTIRE CHAPTER ....
. 458
79.
THE MEDIAEVAL DISSENTERS ......
. 461
80.
THE CATHARI
. 470
81.
PETER DE BRUYS AND OTHER LEADERS ....
. 482
82.
THE AMAURIANS AND OTHER SECTS .....
. 486
83.
THE BEGUINES AND BEGHARDS ......
. 489
84.
THE WALDENSES ........
. 493
85.
THE CRUSADES AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES ....
. 507
86.
THE INQUISITION. ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE .
. 515
87.
THE INQUISITION. ITS MODE OF PROCEDURE .
. 625
CHAPTER XL UNIVERSITIES AND CATHEDRALS.
88
SCHOOLS ..........
534
o *-"-'
89.
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES .......
. 543
90.
THE UNIVERSITIES ........
. 551
91.
THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA ......
. 563
92.
THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS ......
. 568
93.
OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE .......
. 574
94.
THE CATHEDRALS
. 581
CHAPTER XII. SCHOLASTIC AND MYSTIC THEOLOGY.
95.
LITERATURE AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION
. 587
96.
SOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOLASTICISM
. 591
97.
REALISM AND NOMINALISM .......
. 594
98.
ANSELM OF CANTERBURY .......
. 597
99.
PETER ABAILARD ........
. 609
100.
AB.ELARD'S TEACHINGS AND THEOLOGY ....
. 620
101.
YOUNGER CONTEMPORARIES OF AB^LARD ....
. 627
W2.
PETER THE LOMBARD AND THE SUMMISTS ....
. 631
8 103
MYSTICISM . . ......
636
^ J.VO.
104.
ST. BERNARD AS A MYSTIC
. 639
105.
HUGO AND RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
. 643
CHAPTER XIII. SCHOLASTICISM AT ITS HEIGHT.
106.
ALEXANDER OF HALES .......
. 651
107.
ALBERTUS MAGKUS ........
. 652
108.
THOMAS AQUINAS . .......
. 659
109.
BONAVENTURA .........
. 677
110.
DUNS SCOTUS
. 683
111.
ROGER BACON
. 692
XIV CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIV. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM.
PAGE
112.
LITERATURE ON THE SACRAMENTS .....
. 700
H3.
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS .......
. 701
114.
BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION
. 708
115.
THE EUCHARIST .........
. 713
116.
EUCHARISTIC PRACTICE AND SUPERSTITION
. 721
117.
PENANCE AND INDULGENCES ......
. 729
118.
PENANCE AND INDULGENCES ......
. 735
119.
EXTREME UNCTION, ORDINATION, AND MARRIAGE
. 743
120.
SIN AND GRACE .........
. 749
121.
THE FUTURE STATE
. 757
CHAPTER XV. POPE AND CLERGY.
122.
THE CANON LAAV ........
. 764
123.
THE PAPAL SUPREMACY IN CHURCH AND STATE
. 771
124.
THE POPE AND THE CURIA ......
. 780
125.
THE BISHOPS
. 792
126.
THE LOWER CLERGY ........
. 799
127.
THE COUNCILS .........
. 808
128.
THE CHURCH AND CLERGY IN ENGLAND ....
. 812
129.
Two ENGLISH BISHOPS
. 823
CHAPTER XVI. POPULAR WORSHIP AND SUPERSTITION.
130.
THE WORSHIP OF MARY
. 830
131.
THE WORSHIP OF RELICS
. 844
132.
THE SERMON . . .
. 850
133.
HYMNS AND SACRED POETRY ......
. 859
134.
THE RELIGIOUS DRAMA .......
. 869
s 135
875
o *w.
136.
DEMONOLOGY AND THE DARK ARTS .....
. 878
137.
THE AGE PASSING JUDGMENT UPON ITSELF
. 889
INDEX
897
THE MIDDLE AGES
FROM GREGORY VIL, 1049, TO BONIFACE VIIL, 1294
THE MIDDLE AGES.
THE PAPAL THEOCRACY IN CONFLICT WITH
THE SECULAR POWER.
FROM GREGORY VII. TO BONIFACE VIII.
A.D. 1049-1294.
THE FIFTH PERIOD OF CHURCH HISTORY.
1. General Literature.
SOURCES: J. P. MIGNE : Patrologice cursus completus, etc. The Latin
series containing the writings of the "Fathers, Doctors, and Writers of
the Latin Church from Tertullian to Innocent III.," 221 vols. Paris,
1844-1864. Indispensable. The writers of the llth century begin with
vol. 139. PHILIP LABB^SCS, S.J., d. 1667: Sacrosancta concilia ad
regiam editionem exacta, 18 vols. Paris, 1662 sqq. Labbseus lived to
see vol. IX. in print. Completed by Gabriel Cossart. This collection
has been used in places in this volume. JOHN D. MANSI, abp. of Lucca,
d. 1769 : Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 31
vols., Florence and Venice, 1759-1798. Extends to the Council of
Florence, 1439. New facsimile ed. with continuation. Paris, 1901 sqq.
Thus far 38 vols., 0-37, reaching to 1735. L. A. MURATORI, d. 1750:
Rerum Italicarum scriptores, 500-1600, 25 vols. Milan, 1723-1751,
with supplemental vols., Florence, 1748, 1770, Venice, 1771, in all 31
parts. Repub. and ed. by G. Carducci et V. Fiorini, Citta di Castello
1902 sqq. Monumenta Germanice historica, ed. by G. H. PERTZ, d.
1870, and his coeditors and successors, WATTENBACH, BOHMER, etc.
More than 60 vols. Han., 1826 sqq. They cover the whole history
of the empire and papacy. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum for use in
schools and drawn from the preceding, ed. by PERTZ, 42 vols. Han.,
1840-1894. Die Geschichtschreiber de.r deutschen Vorzeit, ed. by PERTZ,
etc., in German trans, 92 vols. Berlin and Leipzig, 1849-1892. The
Rolls Series, Rerum Britannicarum medii cevi scriptores, 97 vols.,
London, 1858-1891, contains splendid edd. of William of Malmesbury,
Roger of Wendover, Ralph of Coggeshall, Richard of Hoveden, Matthew
Paris (7 vols.), Grosseteste, and other English mediaeval writers. Bohn's
'n 1
2 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Antiq. Library, 41 vols. London, 1848-1864 sqq., gives translations of M.
Paris, Richard of Hoveden, etc. J. F. BOHMER : liegesta imperil, 1198-
1254. New ed. by J. Ticker and Winkelmann, Innsbruck, 1881-1894.
Regesta pontificum romanorum from St. Peter to Innocent III., ed. by
Jaffe', d. 1878, Berlin, 1851, pp. 951 ; 2d ed. by WATTENBACH, LOWENTHAL,
KALTENBRUNNER, and EWALD, vol. I. Lips., 1885, from Peter to Innocent
II., 64-1143 ; vol. II. Lips., 1888 from Ccelestin II. to Innocent III., 1143-
1198. Continuation by Aug. Potthast, from Innocent III., to Benedict
XL, 1198-1304, 2 vols. pp. 2157, Berlin, 1873, 1875. J. VON PFLUGK
HARTTUNG : Acta pontificum rom. inedita, 3 vols. Tubing. 1881-1888.
CARL MIRBT : Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des rom.
Katholizismus, 2d ed. Tubing. 1901, pp. 482. Very convenient and valu-
able, giving the original Latin documents. SHAILER MATHEWS : Select
Mediaeval Docts. etc., illustr. the Hist, of the Church and Empire, 754-
1254, N. Y. 1892. HEINRICH DENIFLE, O.P., archivarius of the Vati-
can Library, d. 1905, and FRANZ EHRLE, S.J. : Archiv fur Literatur-
und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, Freib. im Br. 1885 sqq. Many
important documents were published here for the first time. Quellen
und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken her-
ausgegeben vom Koenigl-Preussichen Historischen Institut in Rom.,
thus far 8 vols. 1897-1905.
SECONDARY WORKS : Histoire Litteraire de la France, 1733 sqq. Dicty. of
Natl. Siogr., ed. by LESLIE STEPHEN, 63 vols. with Supplem., London,
1885-1903. WETZER-WELTE : Kirchen Lexikon, 2d ed. 12 vols. Freib.
iin Br. 1882-1901. HERZOG : Realencyklopaedia fur protestantische
Theologie und Kirche, ed. by A. HAUCK, 3d ed. 1896 sqq. Thus far 18
vols. W. GIESEBRECHT: Gesch. derdeutschen Kaiserzeit, 3 vols. 5th ed.
Leipzig, 1890. DOLLINGER-FRIEDRICH: Das Papstthum, Munich, 1892. A
revision of Bellinger's The Pope and the Council, which appeared in 1869
under the pseudonym JANUS, as a protest against the doctrine of Papal
Infallibility about to be taken up at the Vatican Council. FERDINAND
GREGOROVIUS : Geschichte der Stadt Rom. im Mittelalter, Engl. trans,
from the 4th German, ed. 1886-1893, Stuttg., by Annie Hamilton, 8 vols.
(13 parts), London, 1894-1902. The most valuable general work on the
Middle Ages. JAMES BRYCE : The Holy Roman Empire, new ed. London,
1904, pp. 575. Thorough and lucid. CARL J. VON HEFELE, Bishop of
Rottenburg, d. 1893 : Conciliengeschichte to 1536, 2d ed. 9 vols. Freib. im
Br. 1873-1890. Vols. V.-VII. in 2d ed.by A. KNOPFLER. Vols. VIII. IX.
were prepared by CARDINAL HERGENROTHER. A. HAUCK : Kirchenge-
schichte Deutschlands, 4 vols. Leipzig, 1887-1903 ; vols. I. II. 4th ed. 1904.
GIBBON : Decline and Fall of Rome, ed. by J. B. BURY, 7 vols. London,
1897-1900. LEOPOLD VON RANKE : Weltgeschichte to 1453, 9 vols. Leip-
zig, 1883-1888. The Church Histories of NEANDER, GIESELER, BAUR,
Diechristl. Kirche des MittelalteYs, 1861, MILMAN, HAGENBACH, K. II ASK,
RICH. C. TRENCH : Med. Ch. History, 1877. The Manuals of Church His-
tory of HEFELE-KNOPFLER, 3d ed. 1902, F. X. FUNK, 4th ed. 1902, W.
MOELLER Engl. trans. 3 vols. 1898-1900, KARL MULLER, 2 vols. 1892-1902,
2. INTRODUCTORY SURVEY. 3
HERGENROTHER, rev. by J. P. KIRSCH, 4th ed. 1902 sqq. LOOFS, 1901,
HANS VON SCHUBERT, 1904, GEO. P. FISHER, 1887, H. C. SHELDON, 6 vols.
N. Y. 1890, A. C. ZENOS, Phil. 1899, A. H. NEWMAN, 2 vols. 1900 sqq.
The Histories of Christian Doctrine, of HARNACK Engl. trans, from 3d Ger.
ed. 7 vols. Boston, 1897-1900. LOOPS, 3d ed. 1893, GEO. P. FISHER, 1896,
SEEBERG, 2 vols. 1895, H. C. SHELDON, 2 vols. 4th ed. 1905. HALLAM :
Hist, of the Middle Ages. GUIZOT : Hist, of Civilization from the Fall
of the Rom. Emp. to the French Revolution. LECKY : Hist, of Ration-
alism in Europe and European Morals. H. WEINGARTEN : Zeittafeln
und Ueberblicke zur Kirchengeschichte, 6th ed. by Arnold, Leipzig, 1905.
FOR LITERATURE : A. POTTHAST : Bibliotheca Historica mediiaevi, Wegweiser
durch die Geschichtswerke des europaischen Mittelalters bis 1500, 2 vols.
Berlin, 1864-1868, 2d ed. Berlin, 1896. A work of great industry and
value. U. CHEVALIER : Repertoire des sources historiques du moyen
age, Paris, 1877-1886, Supplem. 1888. W. WATTENBACH : Deutsche
Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, to 1250, 2 vols. Berlin, 1858, 6th ed.
1893 sq.
For other works relating to the whole period of the Middle Ages,
see vol. IV. 1-4.
2. Introductory Survey.
THE fifth period of general Church history, or the second
period of mediaeval Church history, begins with the rise of
Hildebrand, 1049, and ends with the elevation of Boniface
VIII. to the papal dignity, 1294.
In this period the Church and the papacy ascend from the
lowest state of weakness and corruption to the highest power
and influence over the nations of Europe. It is the classical
age of Latin Christianity : the age of the papal theocracy,
aiming to control the German Empire and the kingdoms of
France, Spain, and England. It witnessed the rise of the
great Mendicant orders and the religious revival which fol-
lowed. It beheld the full flower of chivalry and the prog-
ress of the crusades, with the heroic conquest and loss of the
Holy Land. It saw the foundations laid of the great universi-
ties of Bologna, Paris, Oxford. It was the age of scholastic
philosophy and theology, and their gigantic efforts to solve
all conceivable problems and by dialectical skill to prove
every article of faith. During its progress Norman and
Gothic architecture began to rear the cathedrals. All the arts
4 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
were made the handmaids of religion ; and legendary poetry
and romance flourished. Then the Inquisition was estab-
lished, involving the theory of the persecution of Jews and
heretics as a divine right, and carrying it into execution in
awful scenes of torture and blood. It was'an age of bright
light and deep shadows, of strong faith and stronger supersti-
tion, of sublime heroism and wild passions, of ascetic self-
denial and sensual indulgence, of Christian devotion and bar-
barous cruelty. 1 Dante, in his Divina Commedia, which
" heaven and earth" combined to produce, gives a poetic mirror
of Christianity and civilization in the thirteenth and the open-
ing years of the fourteenth century, when the Roman Church
was at the summit of its power, and yet, by the abuse of that
power and its worldliness, was calling forth loud protests, and
demands for a thorough reformation from all parts of Western
Christendom.
A striking feature of the Middle Ages is the contrast
and co-operation of the forces of extreme self-abnegation as
represented in monasticism and extreme ambition for worldly
dominion as represented in the papacy. 2 The former gave
moral support to the latter, and the latter utilized the former.
The monks were the standing army of the pope, and fought
his battles against the secular rulers of Western Europe.
The papal theocracy in conflict with the secular powers
and at the height of its power is the leading topic. The weak
and degenerate popes who ruled from 900-1046 are now
succeeded by a line of vigorous minds, men of moral as well
as intellectual strength. The world has had few rulers
equal to Gregory VII. 1073-1085, Alexander III. 1159-1181,
and Innocent III. 1198-1216, not to speak of other pontiffs
scarcely second to these masters in the art of government and
aspiring aims. The papacy was a necessity and a blessing
1 Dean Stanley, Sermons and Addresses in America, p. 220, speaks of the
"grace of the Middle Ages and their hideous atrocities."
2 The ideas are expressed by the German words Weltentsagung and Welt-
beherrschung.
2. INTRODUCTORY SURVEY. 5
in a barbarous age, as a check upon brute force, and as a
school of moral discipline. The popes stood on a much higher
plane than the princes of their time. The spirit has a right to
rule over the body ; the intellectual and -moral interests are
superior to the material and political. But the papal theoc-
racy carried in it the temptation to secularization. By the
abuse of opportunity it became a hindrance to pure religion
and morals. Christ gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom
of heaven, but he also said, " My kingdom is not of this
world." The pope coveted both kingdoms, and he got what
he coveted. But he was not able to hold the power he
claimed over the State, and aspiring after temporal authority
lost spiritual power. Boniface VIII. marks the beginning of
the decline and fall of the papal rule ; and the seeds of this
decline and fall were sown in the period when the hierarchy
was in the pride of its worldly might and glory.
In this period also, and chiefly as the result of the crusades,
the schism between the churches of the East and the West
was completed. All attempts made at reconciliation by pope
and council only ended in wider alienation.
The ruling nations during the Middle Ages were the Latin,
who descended from the old Roman stock, but showed the
mixture of barbaric blood and vigor, and the Teutonic. The
Italians and French had the most learning and culture.
Politically, the German nation, owing to its possession of the
imperial crown and its connection with the papacy, was the
most powerful, especially under the Hohenstaufen dynasty.
England, favored by her insular isolation, developed the
power of self-government and independent nationality, and
begins to come into prominence in the papal administration.
Western Europe is the scene of intellectual, ecclesiastical,
and political activities of vast import, but its arms and devo-
tion find their most conspicuous arena in Palestine and the
East.
Finally this period of two centuries and a half is a period
6 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
of imposing personalities. The names of the greatest of the
popes have been mentioned, Gregory VII., Alexander III.,
and Innocent III. Its more notable sovereigns were William
the Conqueror, Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick II., and St.
Louis of France. Dante the poet illumines its last years.
St. Bernard, Francis d'Assisi, and Dominic, the Spaniard, rise
above a long array of famous monks. In the front rank
of its Schoolmen were Anselm, Abelard, Albertus Magnus,
Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Duns Scotus. Thomas
a Becket and Grosseteste are prominent representatives of
the body of episcopal statesmen. This combination of great
figures and of great movements gives to this period a variety
of interest such as belongs to few periods of Church history
or the history of mankind.
CHAPTER I.
THE HILDEBRANDIAN POPES. A.D. 1049-1073.
3. Sources and Literature on Chapters I. and II.
See the general literature on the papacy in vol. IV. 202 sqq.; and the list
of mediaeval popes, 205 sqq.
I. SOURCES FOR THE WHOLE PERIOD FROM 1049 TO 1085 :
MIGNE : Patrol. Lat., vols. 140-148. DAMIANI : Epistolce, in Migne, vol.
144. BONIZO or BONITHO (Bishop of Sutri, 1091 ; prisoner of Henry IV.,
1082; a great admirer of Gregory VII.) : Liber ad amicum, sive de perse-
cutione ecclesice (in Jaffa's Monum. Gregor., p. 628 sqq., where he is
charged with falsehood; but see Giesebrecht and Hefele, IV. 707).
PHIL. JAFFE (d. 1870): Itegesta Pontif. Horn., pp. 366-443, 2d ed. I.
529-649. JAFF : Monumenta G-regoriana (see below). K. FRANCKE :
Libelli de lite imperatorum et Pontificum Sceculi XI. et XII. conscripti,
3 vols. Hannov. 1891-1897, contains the tractarian lit. of the Hildebran-
dian age. On other sources, see WATTENBACH : Deutschlands Geschichts-
quellen im Mittelalter, II. 220 sqq. and MIRBT : Publizistik, 6-95.
II. WORKS ON THE WHOLE PERIOD FROM 1049 TO 1085 :
HOFLER: Deutsche Papste, Regensb., 1839 sqq., 3 vols. C. WILL: Anfange
der Restauration der Kirche im ll ten Jahrh., Marburg, 1859-1862, 2 parts.
THS. GREENWOOD: Cathedra Petri, books X. and XI. London, 1861.
GIESEBRECHT : Gesch. der deutschen Kaizerzeit, vols. II. and III.
.(Braunschweig, 5th ed. 1881). RUD. BAXMANN : Die Politik der Papste
von Gregor I. bis auf Gregor VII., Elberfeld, 1868, 1869. 2 vols. vol. II.
186-434. WATTENBACH : Geschichte des rom. Papstthums, Berlin, 1876
(pp. 97-136). GREGOROVIUS : Hist, of the City of Home. HEFELE :
Conciliengeschichte, IV. 716-900, and V. 1-185. L. v. RANKE : Weltge-
schichte, vol. VII. BRYCE : Holy Roman Empire. FREEMAN : Hist, of
Norman Conq. of England, vol. IV. Oxford, 1871, and Hist, of Sicily.
F. NEUKIRCH : Das Leben des Petrus Damiani bis 1059, Gb'tt., 1875.
J. LANGEN: Geschichte der rom. Kirche von Gregor VII. bis Innocent III.,
Bonn, 1893. HAUCK : Kirchenge.schichte Dcntschlands, vols. III. IV.
W. F. BARRY : The Papal Monarchy from 590-1303, N. Y. 1902.
7
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
III. SPECIAL SOURCES AND WORKS ON HILDEBRAND :
His letters (359), the so-called Begistrum, in MIGNE, vol. 148, MANSI, XX.
60-391, and best in JAFFE, Monumenta Gregoriana, Berol., 1865, 712
pp. (in " Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum," vol. II.). The first critical
edition. Jaffe" gives the Begistrum in eight books, with fifty-one addi-
tional letters collected from MSS., and Bonithonis episcopi Sutrini
ad amicum. Gregory's biographies by Cardinal Petrus of Pisa, Bernried,
Amalric, Lambert, etc., in MURATORI : Berum Italicaritm Scriptores,
vol. III.; and WATTERICH: Pontif. Bom. Vitce, Lips., 1862, I. 293 sqq.;
Acta Sanct. Maii, die 25, VI. 102-159.
Modern works : JOH. VOIGT (Prof, of Hist, in Konigsberg, d. 1863) : Hilde-
brand als Papst Gregorius VII. und sein Zeitalter, 1815, 2d ed. Weimar,
1846, pp. 625. The first attempt at an impartial estimate of Gregory
from the Protestant historical standpoint. The first edition was trans-
lated into French and Italian, and gave rise to a remarkable Latin corre-
spondence with Clemens Villecourt, bishop of La Rochelle, which is
printed in the preface to the second edition. The bishop tried to
convert Voigt to the Catholic Church, but in vain. SIR ROGER
GREISLY: The Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII., London, 1832, pp.
372. Impartial, but unimportant. J. W. BOWDEN: The Life and Pon-
tificate of Gregory VII. London, 1840, 2 vols. pp. 374 and 411. CARD.
NEWMAN: Hist. Essays, II. 249-336. SIR JAMES STEPHEN : Hildebrand,
in "Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography," 1849, 4th ed. London, 1860,
pp. 1-58. He calls "Hildebrand the very impersonation of papal arro-
gance and of spiritual despotism." SOLTL : Gregor VII., Leipzig, 1847.
FLOTO : Kaiser HeinrichlV. und sein Zeitalter. Stuttg., 1855, 1856, 2
. vols. Sides with Henry IV. HELFENSTEIN : Gregor VII. Bestrebungen
nach den Streitsc.hriften seiner Zeit., Frankfurt, 1856. A. F. GFRORER
(first a rationalist, then a convert to Rome, 1853 ; d. 1861): Papst Greg.
VII. und sein Zeitalter. 7 vols. Schaffhausen, 1859-1861. GIESEBRECHT:
I.e., vol. III. A. F. VILLEMAIN: Hist, de Gregoire VII. 2 vols. Paris, 1873.
Engl. trans, by J. B. Brockley, 2 vols. London, 1874. S. BARING-GOULD,
in " The Lives of the Saints" for May 25, London, 1873. W. MARTENS:
Die Besetzung des papstlichen Stuhls unter den Kaisern Heinrich III.
und Heinrich IV. 1887; *Gregor VII., sein Leben und Wirken, 2 vols.
Leipzig, 1894. W. R. W. STEPHENS: Hildebrand and his Times, London,
1888. 0. DELARC: S. Gregoire VII. et la reforms, de I'eylise au XL
siecle, 3 vols. Paris, 1889. C. MIRBT (Prof, in Marburg) : Die SteUung
Augustins in der Publizistik des Gregorianischen Kirchenstreits, Leipzig,
1888. Shows the influence of St. Augustine on both parties in the Grego-
rian controversy over the relation of Church and State ; Die Wahl
Gregors VIL, Marburg, 1892; * Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors
VII., Leipzig, 1894, pp. 629. An exhaustive treatment of the copious
tractarian lit. of the Hildebrandian age and its attitude on the various
objects of Gregory's policy; art. Gregor VII., in Herzog, VII. 96-113.
MARVIN R. VINCENT : The Age of Hildebrand, N. Y. 1896. Also J.
GHEVING : Paul von Bernried 1 s Vita GregoriiVIL, Berlin, 1893, pp. 172.
4. HILDEBRAND AND HIS TRAINING. 9
4. Hildebrand and his Training.
THE history of the period begins with a survey of the
papacy as the controlling power of Western Christendom. It
embraces six stages: 1. The Hildebrandian popes, 1049-
1073. 2. Gregory VII., 1073-1085, or the assertion of the
supreme authority of the papacy in human affairs. 3. From
Gregory's death to the Concordat of Worms, 1122, or the
settlement of the controversy over investiture. 4. From
the Concordat of Worms to Innocent III., 1198. 5. The
Pontificate of Innocent III., 1198-1216, or the papacy at its
height. 6. From Innocent III. to Boniface VIII., 1216-
1294, or the struggle of the papacy with Frederick II. and
the restoration of peace between the papacy and the empire.
The papacy had reached its lowest stage of weakness and
degeneracy when at Sutri in 1046, under the influence of
Henry III., two popes were deposed and a third was forced
to abdicate. 1 But the worthless popes, who prostituted their
office and outraged the feelings of Christendom during the
tenth and the first half of the eleventh century, could not
overthrow the papacy any more than idolatrous kings could
overthrow the Jewish monarchy, or wicked emperors the
Roman Empire. In the public opinion of Europe, the papacy
was still a necessaryinstitutTon'esTablished by Christ in the
primacy of Peter for the government and administration of
the Church. There was nothing to take its place. It needed
only a radical reformation in its head, which would be fol-
lowed by a reformation of the members. Good men all over
Europe anxiously desired and hoped that Providence would
intervene and rescue the chair of Peter from the hands of
thieves and robbers, and turn it once more into a blessing.
The idea of abolishing the papacy did not occur to the mind
of the Christians of that age as possible or desirable.
At last the providential man for effecting this necessary
i Vol. IV. 66, pp. 299 sqq.
10 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
reformation appeared in the person of Hildebrand, who
controlled five successive papal administrations for twenty-
four years, 1049-1073, then occupied the papal chair himself
for twelve years, 1073-1085, and was followed by like-minded
successors. He is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of
popes, and one of the most remarkable men in history. He
excited in his age the highest admiration and the bitterest
hatred. Opinions about his principles and policy are still
divided ; but it is impossible to deny his ability, energy,
earnestness, and achievements.
Hildebrand was of humble and obscure origin, but fore-
ordained to be a prince of the Church. He was of small stat-
ure, and hence called " Hildebrandellus " by his enemies, but
a giant in intellect and character. His figure was ungainly
and his voice feeble; but his eyes were bright and piercing,
bespeaking penetration, a fiery spirit, and restless activity.
His early life is involved in obscurity. He only incidentally
alludes to it in his later Epistles, and loved to connect it
with the supernatural protection of St. Peter and the Holy
Virgin. With a monkish disregard of earthly relations, he
never mentions his family. The year of his birth is un-
known. The veneration of friends and the malice of ene-
mies surrounded his youth with legends and lies. _Efi w&s
the son of a peasant; jpr goatherd, Bonizo, living near Soana, a
village in the marshes of Tuscany, a few miles from Orbitello.
The oft-repeated tradition that he was the son of a carpenter
seems to have originated in the desire to draw a parallel
between him and Jesus of Nazareth. Of his mother we know
nothing. His name points to Lombard or German origin,
and was explained by his contemporaries as hell-brand or fire-
brand. 1 Odilo, the abbot of Cluny, saw sparks of fire issuing
from his raiment, and predicted that, like John the Baptist,
he would be "great in the sight of the Lord."
1 The contemporary spellings are: Yldibrandus, Heldebrandus, Ildebran-
<?MS, Oldeprandus. William of Malmesbury calls him homuncio exiUs statttrce.
4. HILDEBltAND AND HIS TRAINING. 11
He entered the Benedictine order in the convent of St.
Mary on the Aventine at Rome, of which his maternal uncle
was abbot. Here he had a magnificent view of the eternal
city. 1 Here he was educated with Romans of the higher
families. 2 The convent was under the influence of the re-
formatory spirit of Cluny, arid the home of its abbots on their
pilgrimages to Rome. He exercised himself in severe self-
discipline, and in austerity and rigor he remained a monk
all his life. He cherished an enthusiastic veneration for the
Virgin Mary. The personal contemplation of the scandalous
contentions of the three rival popes and the fearful immo-
rality in the capital of Christendom must have raised in his
earnest soul a deep disgust. He associated himself with the
party which prepared for a reformation of the hierarchy.
His sympathies were with his teacher and friend, Gregory
VI. This pope had himself bought the papal dignity from
the wretched Benedict IX., but he did it for the benefit of
the Church, and voluntarily abdicated on the arrival of
Henry III. at the Synod of Sutri, 1046. It is strange that
Hildebrand, who abhorred simony, should begin his public
career in the service of a simouist; but he regarded Gregory
as the only legitimate pope among the three rivals, and fol-
lowed him, as his chaplain, to Germany into exile.
" Victrix causa Deis placuit, sed victa Catoni." 8
He visited Worms, Spires, Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, the
old seats of the empire, and spent much time at the court of
1 Giesebrecht (III. 12 sq.): "Das Marienkloster auf clem Aventin, jetzt
unter clem Namen des Priorats von Malta bekannt, bietet eine entzuckende
Aussicht . . . Ein hochbegabter Knabe, cler hier encuchs, musste die ver-
schiedensten und machtigsten Eindrucke erhalten, die sich kaum in einem
anderen Gedanken zusammenschliessen konnten, als in dem der unvergleich-
lichen Hoheit des ewigen Roms."
2 So Martens, etc. Gregory speaks of having been brought up from child-
hood apueritia by the prince of the apostles and " in the Roman palace."
3 The German historian, Otto von Freisingen, aptly applies this verse of
Lucan to the relation of the two popes, thus comparing Hildebrand to Cato.
12 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
Henry III., where he was very kindly treated. After the
death of Gregory at Cologne, 1048, Hildebrand went to
Cluny, the nursery of a moral reformation of monasticism.
According to some reports, he had been there before. He
zealously gave himself to ascetic exercises and ecclesiastical
studies under the excellent abbot Hugo, and became prior of
the convent. He often said afterwards that he wished to
spend his life in prayer and contemplation within the walls
of this sacred retreat.
But the election of Bishop Bruno of Toul, the cousin of
Emperor Henry III., to the papal chair, at the Diet of
Worms, brought him on the stage of public action. " Reluc-
tantly," he said, " I crossed the Alps ; more reluctantly I
returned to Rome." He advised Bruno (either at Cluny or
at Besangon) not to accept the triple crown from the hands
of the emperor, but to await canonical election by the clergy
and people of Rome. He thus clearly asserted, for the first
time, his principle of the supremacy of the Church over the
State.
Bruno, accompanied by Hildebrand, travelled to Rome as
a pilgrim, entered the city barefoot, was received with accla-
mations, canonically elected, and ascended the papal chair on
Feb. 12, 1049, as Leo IX.
From this time on, Hildebrand was the reigning spirit of
the papacy. He understood the art of ruling through others,
and making them feel that they ruled themselves. He used
as his aide-de-camp Peter Darniani, the severe monk and fear-
less censor of the immoralities of the age, who had conquered
the world within and helped him to conquer it without, in
the crusade against simony and concubinage, but died, 1072,
a year before Hildebrand became pope. 1
* See vol. IV. 787 sqq.
5. HILDEBRAND AND LEO IX. 13
5. Hildebrand and Leo IX. 1049-1054.
The moral reformation of the papacy began with Hilde-
brand as leader. 1 He resumed the work of the emperor,
Henry III., and carried it forward in the interest of the
hierarchy. He was appointed cardinal-subdeacon, treasurer
of the Roman Church, and abbot of St. Paul's. He was
repeatedly sent as delegate to foreign countries, where he
acquired an extensive knowledge of affairs. He replenished
the empty treasury and became wealthy himself through the
help of a baptized Jew, Benedictus Christianus, and his son
Leo, who did a prosperous banking business. But money
was to him only a means for exalting the Church. His great
object was to reform the clergy by the destruction of two
well-nigh universal evils : simony (Acts 8 : 18), that is. the
traffic in ecclesiastical dignities, and Nicolaitism (Rev. 2 : 6,
15), or the concubinage of the priests. In both respects he
had the full sympathy of the new pope, and was backed by
the laws of the Church. The reformation was to be effected
in the regular way of synodical legislation under the per-
sonal direction of the pope.
Leo, accompanied by Hildebrand, held several synods in
Italy, France, and Germany. He was almost omnipresent
in the Church, and knew how to combine monastic simplicity
with papal dignity and splendor. He was believed to work
miracles wherever he went, and to possess magic powers
over birds and beasts.
In his first synod, held in Rome at Easter, 1049, simony
was prohibited on pain of excommunication, including the
guilty bishops and the priests ordained by them. But it was
found that a strict prosecution would well-nigh deprive the
churches, especially those of Rome, of their shepherds. A pen-
ance of forty days was, therefore, substituted for the depo-
1 See E. Martin, St. Leon IX., Paris, 1904, pp. 216 ; Mirbt art. in Herzog,
XI. 379-386.
14 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
sition of priests. The same synod renewed the old prohibitions
of sexual intercourse of the clergy, and made the ooncubines of
the Roman priests servants of the Lateran palace. The almost
forgotten duty of the tithe was enjoined upon all Christians.
The reformatory sy_nodspf Pavia, Rheims, and Mainz,
held in the same year, legislated against the same vices, as
also against usury, marriage in forbidden degrees, the bear-
ing of arms by the clergy. They likewise revealed a fright-
ful amount of simony and clerical immorality. Several
bishops were deposed. 1 Archbishop Wido of Rheims nar-
rowly escaped the same fate on a charge of simony. On his
return, Leo held synods in lower Italy and in Rome. He
made a second tour across the Alps in 1052, visiting Bur-
gundy, Lorraine, and Germany, and his friend the emperor.
We find him at Regensburg, Bamberg, Mainz, and Worms.
Returning to Rome, he held in April, 1053, his fourth Easter
Synod. Besides the reform of the Church, the case of Beren-
gar and the relation to the Greek Church were topics of dis-
cussion in several of these synods. Berengar was condemned,
1050, for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. It is
remarkable with what leniency Hildebrand treated Berengar
and his eucharistic doctrine, in spite of the papal condemna-
tion ; but he was not a learned theologian. The negotiation
with the Greek Church only ended in greater separation. 2
Leo surrounded himself with a council of cardinals who
supported him in his reform. Towards the close of his
pontificate, he acted inconsistently by taking up arms against
the Normans in defence of Church property. He was de-
feated and taken prisoner at Benevento, but released again
1 In deposing at the Synod of Rheims the abp. of St. lago, who had
assumed the title apostolicus, Leo asserted in the strongest terms the primacy
of the Roman see, quod solus Romance sedis pontifex universalis, ecclesice
primas esset et apostolicus, Mansi, XIX. 738.
2 The controversy of Berengar is treated in vol. IV. 554 sqq. ; the Greek
controversy, ibid. p. 318 sqq. On the synods during the pontificate of Leo IX.,
see Jaffe", Reg., 529-549, Hefele, IV, 716-777, and Mirbt, Quellen, 95 sq.
6. VICTOR II. AND STEPHEN IX. 15
by granting them in the name of St. Peter their conquests
in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. The Normans kissed his
toe, and asked his absolution and blessing. He incurred
the censure of the strict reform party. Damiani maintained
that a clergyman dare not bear arms even in defence of the
property of the Church, but must oppose invincible patience
to the fury of the world, according to the example of Christ.
Leo spent his remaining days in grief over his defeat. He
died at Rome, April 19, 1054, in his fifty-third year, after com-
mending his soul to God in a German prayer of humble resig-
nation, and was buried near the tomb of Gregory I. As he had
begun the reformation of the Church, and miracles were re-
ported, he was enrolled in the Calendar of Saints. Desiderius,
afterwards Victor III., wrote, "All ecclesiastical interests were
reformed by Leo and in him a new light arose in the world."
6. Victor II. and Stephen IX. (X). 1055-1058.
Hildebrand was absent in France when Leo died, and hur-
ried to Rome. He could find no worthy successor in Italy,
and was unwilling to assume the burden of the papacy him-
self. He cast his eye upon Gebhard, bishop of Eichstadt,
the ablest, richest, and most influential prelate of Germany,
who was warmly devoted to the emperor. He proceeded at
the head of a deputation, appointed by the clergy and peo-
ple, to the German court, and begged the emperor to raise
Gebhard to the papal chair. After long delay, Gebhard was
elected at a council in Regensburg, March, 1055, and conse-
crated in St. Peter's at Rome, April 13, as Victor II. He
continued the synodical war against simony, but died as
early as July 28, 1057, at Arezzo, of a fever. He was the
last of the German popes.
The cardinal-abbot of Monte Cassino was elected and con-
secrated as Stephen IX. (X.), Aug. 3, 1057, by the clergy
and people of Rome, without their consulting the German
court; but he died in the following year, March 29, 1058.
16 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
In the meantime a great change had taken place in Ger-
many. Henry III. died in the prime of manhood, Oct. 5,
1056, and left a widow as regent and a son of six years, the
ill-fated Henry IV. The long minority reign afforded a
favorable opportunity for the reform party to make the
papacy independent of the imperial power, which Henry III.
had wisely exerted for the benefit of the Church, yet at the
expense of her freedom.
The Roman nobility, under the lead of the counts of Tus-
culum, took advantage of Hildebrand's absence in Germany
to reassert its former control of the papacy by electing Bene-
dict X. (1058-1060). But this was a brief intermezzo. On
his return, Hildebrand, with the help of Duke Godfrey, ex-
pelled the usurping pope, and secured, with the consent of
the empress, the election of Gerhard, bishop of Florence,
a strong reformer, of ample learning and irreproachable char-
acter, who assumed the name of Nicolas II. at his consecra-
tion, Jan. 25, 1059. Benedict was deposed, submitted, and
obtained absolution. He was assigned a lodging in the
church of St. Agnes, where he lived for about twenty years.
7. Nicolas II. and the Cardinals. 1059-1061.
The pontificate of Nicolas II. was thoroughly under the
control of Hildebrand, who became archdeacon and chan-
cellor of the Roman Church in August or September, 1059.
His enemies said that he kept Nicolas like an ass in the sta-
ble, feeding him to do his work. Peter Damiani calls him
the lord of the pope, and said that he would rather obey the
lord of the pope than the lord-pope himself. 1 He also grimly
i His epigrams on Hildebrand (Opera, II. 961, 967):
"Ftvere vis Romce, clara depromito voce:
Plus domino Papce, quam domino pareo Papa."
" Papam rite coto, sed te prostratus adoro :
Tu facts hunc Dominum; tefacit iste Deum."
7. NICOLAS II. AND THE CARDINALS. 17
calls Hildebrand his "holy Satan," 1 because he had some-
times to obey him against his will, as when he desired to lay
down his bishopric at Ostia and retire to a convent, but was
not permitted to do so. He disliked the worldly splendor
which Hildebrand began to assume in dress and mode of liv-
ing, contrary to his own ascetic principles.
Two important steps were made in the progress of the
hierarchy, a change in the election of the pope, and an
alliance with the Normans for the temporal protection of the
pope.
Nicolas convened a Lateran Council in April, 1059, the
largest held in Rome down to that time. It consisted of a
hundred and thirteen bishops and a multitude of clergymen;
but more than two-thirds of the prelates were Italians, the
rest Burgundians and Frenchmen. Germany was not repre-
sented at all. Berengar was forced at this synod to submit
to a formula of recantation (which he revoked on his return
to France). He calls the bishops " wild beasts," who would
not listen to his idea of a spiritual communion, and insisted
on a Capernaitic manducation of the body of Christ. 2
A far-reaching act of this council was the transfer of the
election of a pope to the " cardinal-bishops " and " cardinal-
clergy." 3 At the pope's death the initiative was to be taken
by the cardinal-bishops. In case they agreed they were to
call in the cardinal-clergy. In case of agreement between
both these classes of functionaries they were to present the
candidate to the Roman clergy and people for ratification.
The stress thus laid upon the cardinal-bishops is a new
thing, and it is evident that the body of cardinals was ac-
corded a place of importance and authority such as it had
1 Ep. 1 : 16. 2 see vol. IV. 557 sq.
3 The canons are given in Mirbt, Quellen, 97 sqq. The two classes of
cardinals are called cardinales episcopi and cardinales clerici. Langen
makes the attempt to identify the latter with " the clergy of Rome," but
without sufficient reason. The clergy, clerus, as a special body, are dis-
tinctly mentioned in the canons.
c
18 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
not enjoyed before. Its corporate history may be said to
begin with these canons. The election of the pope was
made its prerogative. The synod further prescribed that
the pope should be chosen from the body of Roman clergy,
provided a suitable candidate could be found among their
number. In usual cases, Rome was designated as the place
of holding the election. The cardinals, however, were
granted liberty to hold it otherwheres. As for the emperor,
the language of the canons leaves it uncertain whether any
part was accorded to him in the ratification of the elected
pope. His name is mentioned with respect, but it would
seem that all that was intended was that he should receive
due notification of the election of the new pontiff. The
matter was, therefore, taken entirely out of the emperor's
hands and lodged in the college of cardinals. 1 As Henry
was still young and not yet invested with the imperial
dignity, it was a favorable opportunity for the papal circle to
secure the perpetual control of the papal office for the Ro-
mans and the Roman clergy. With rare exceptions, as in
the case of the period of the Avignon exile, the election
1 The canons have come down to us in two forms. The second form, fal-
sified in the interest of the emperors, was current at least thirty years after
Nicolas' s death. The fourth canon bearing on the emperor ran in its original
form thus : salvo debito honore et reverentia dilecti filii nostri Henrici, qui
inpresentiarum rex habetur et futurus imperator deo concedente speratur, si-
cut jam sibi concessimus et successoribus illius qui ab hac apostolica sedeper-
sonaliter hoc jus impetraverint. See Scheffer-Boichorst, Die Neuordnung der
Papstwahl durch Nikolas II., Strass., 1879, who made a thorough investiga-
tion of the subject, Hefele, IV. 800 sqq. ; Hergenrother-Kirsch, Kirchen-
gesch., II. 342 sqq. ; Mirbt, Nikolas II., in Herzog, XIV. 73 sq.; Hauck,
Kirchengesch. III. 683 sqq. Hergenrother, p. 344 note, interprets the
canon as conceding notification and nothing more, in the light of the words
of the contemporary Anselm of Lucca (Alexander II.): ut obeunte Apost.
pontifi.ce successor eligeretur et electio ejus regi notificaretur, facta vero
electione, etc., regi notificata, ita demum pontifex consecraretur. The im-
perial bishops of Germany fought against the limitation of the election to
clerical circles in Rome. Under Henry III. and IV. the view prevailed
among them that no one could be a legitimate pope without the consent
of the emperor. See Scheffer-Boichorst, Zu den Anfangen des Kirchen-
streites unter Heinrich IV., Innsbruck, 1892, p. 122 sq.
7. NICOLAS II. AND THE CARDINALS. 19
of the pope has remained in the hands of the Romans ever
since.
The alliance which Nicolas entered into, 1059, with the
Normans of Southern Italy, was the second act in the long
and notable part which they played in the history of the
papacy. Early in the eleventh century four brothers of the
house of Hauteville, starting from Normandy, began their
adventurous career in Italy and Sicily. They were wel-
comed as crusaders liberating the Christian population from
the rule of the Saracens and its threatened extension. The
kingdom their arms established was confirmed by the apos-
tolic see, and under the original dynasty, and later under
the house of Anjou, had a larger influence on the destinies
of the papacy for three centuries than did Norman England
and the successors of William the Conqueror. Robert Guis-
card, who had defeated the army of Leo IX., and held him a
prisoner for nine months, was confirmed by Nicolas as duke of
Apulia and Calabria. The duchy became a fief of Rome by
an obligation to pay yearly twelve dinars for every yoke of
oxen and to defend the Holy See against attacks upon its
authority. Robert's brother, Roger, d. 1101, began the con-
quest of Sicily in earnest in 1060 by the seizure of Messina,
and followed it up by the capture of Palermo, 1071, and
Syracuse, 1085. He was called Prince of Sicily and per-
petual legate of the Holy See. One of his successors, Roger
II., 1105-1154, was crowned king of Sicily at Palermo by the
authority of the anti-pope Anacletus II. A half century later
the blood of this house became mingled with the blood of
the house of Hohenstaufen in the person of the great
Frederick II. In the prominent part they took we shall
find these Norman princes now supporting the plans of
the papacy, now resisting them.
About the same time the Hautevilles and other freeboot-
ing Normans were getting a foothold in Southern Italy,
the Normans under William the Conqueror, in 1066, were
20 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1019-1073.
conquering England. To them England owes her introduc-
tion into the family of European nations, and her national
isolation ceases. 1
8. The War against Clerical Marriage.
The same Lateran Council of 1059 passed severe laws
against the two heresies of simony and Nicolaitism. It
threatened all priests who were unwilling to give up their
wives or concubines with the loss of their benefices and the
right of reading mass, and warned the laity against attend-
ing their services. " No one," says the third of the thirteen
canons, " shall hear mass from a priest who to his certain
knowledge keeps a concubine or a subintroducta mulier."
These severe measures led to serious disturbances in
Northern Italy, especially in the diocese of Milan, where
every ecclesiastical office from the lowest to the highest was
for sale, and where marriage or concubinage was common
among priests of all grades, not excluding the archbishop. 2
Sacerdotal marriage was regarded as one of the liberties of
the church of St. Ambrose, which maintained a certain inde-
pendence of Rome, and had a numerous and wealthy clergy.
The Milanese defended such marriage by Scripture texts and
by a fictitious decision of Ambrose, who, on the contrary,
was an enthusiast for celibacy. Candidates for holy orders,
if unmarried, were asked if they had strength to remain so ;
if not, they could be legally married ; but second marriages
were forbidden, and the Levitical law as to the virginity of
the bride was observed. Those who remained single were
objects of suspicion, while those who brought up their fami-
lies in the fear of God were respected and eligible to the
1 Stubbs, ed. of Mich, de Hoveden, II. pp. Ixxiii. sqq.
2 Bonizo, a friend of Hildebraad, calls VVulo. who was elected bishop of
Milan in 1045, a "vir illiteratus et concubiiiarius et absque ulla verecundia
Simoniacus." Migne, Tom. OL. 825; Jaffa", Man. Greg., 639. But Hefele,
IV. 793, doubts the charge of concubinage, and also Mirbt, PuMizistik, 249.
9. ALEXANDER II. AND THE SCHISM OF CADALUS.
episcopate. Concubinage was regarded as a heinous offence
and a bar to promotion. 1
But the Roman Church and the Hildebrandian party re-
versed the case, and denounced sacerdotal marriage as
unlawful concubinage. The leader of this party in Lombardy
was Anselm of Baggio (west of Milan), a zealous and elo-
quent young priest, who afterwards became bishop of Lucca
and then pope (as Alexander II.). He attacked the immo-
rality of the clergy, and was supported by the lowest popu-
lace, contemptuously called "Pataria" or " Patarines," i.e.
" Ragbags." 2 Violent and sanguinary tumults took place in
the churches and streets. Peter Damiani, a sincere enthusiast
for ascestic holiness, was sent as papal legate to Milan. He
defended the Pataria at the risk of his life, proclaimed the
supremacy of the Roman see, and exacted a repudiation of
all heretical customs.
This victory had great influence throughout Lombardy.
But the strife was renewed under the following pope and
under Gregory VII., and it was not till 1093 that Urban
II. achieved a permanent triumph over Nicolaitism at a great
council at Piacenza.
9. Alexander II. and the Schism of Cadalus.
1061-1073.
Pope Nicolas II. died July 27, 1061. The cardinals
elected, in some unknown place outside of Rome, Anselm,
bishop of Lucca, Sept. 30, 1061. He was conducted to Rome
in the following night by Norman soldiers, and consecrated,
Oct. 1, as Alexander II. His first act was to administer
the oath of feglfr-y. fo Richard, the Norman leader.
1 Lea, I.e., p. 210.
2 Muratori and Du Cange (sub Pataria and Paterinus) derive pataria
from pate, which in the Milanese dialect means a huckster or pedler. So
also Hefele, IV. 796. Giesebrecht (III. 31) renders Patarina Lumpengesindel.
The contemporary, Bonizo, interprets the term to mean " ragged," patarinos
id est pnnnosos vocabant. See Mirbt, art. Patara, in Herzog, XIV. 761 sqq.
22 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1073.
The an ti-Hildebrandian party of the Roman nobles, headed
by Count Girard of Galeria (an excommunicated robber),
with the aid of the disaffected Lombard clergy, and the
young emperor Henry IV., elected Cadalus (or Cadalous),
bishop of Parma, anti-pope. He was consecrated Oct. 28,
1061, as Honorius II., and maintained a schism of ten years.
He had been repeatedly charged with simony, and had the
sympathy and support of the married or concubinary clergy
and the simoniacal laity, who hoped that his success would
lead to a modification of discipline and legalization of cler-
ical marriage. The opposition thus became an organized
party, and liable to the charge of heresy, which was consid-
ered worse than carnal sin. Damiani and Humbert defended
the principle that a priest who is guilty of simony or con-
cubinage, and believes himself innocent, is more criminal than
he who knows himself to be guilty. Damiani hurled the
fiercest denunciation of a Hebrew prophet against the anti-
pope. Cadalus entered Rome with an armed force, and
maintained himself in the castle of St. Angelo for two years;
but at length he sought safety in flight without a single
follower, and moved to Parma. He died in 1072. His
party was broken up.
Alexander held a council at Mantua, May 31, 1064, and
was universally recognized "as the legitimate pope ; while
Cadalus was anathematized and disappeared from history.
During the pontificate of Alexander, the war against
simony and Nicolaitism went on under the lead of Hilde-
brand and Damiani with varying success. The troubles
in Lombardy were renewed. Archbishop Wiclo of Milan
sided with Cadalus and was excommunicated ; he apolo-
gized, did penance, and resumed office. After his death
in 1071 the strife broke out again with disgraceful scenes
of violence. The Patarine party, supported with gold
by the pope, gained the ascendency after the death of
Cadalus. The Normans repelled the Mohammedan aggres-
9. ALEXANDER II. AND THE SCHISM OF CADALUS. 23
sion and won Southern Italy and Sicily for the Church of
Rome.
This good service had some weight on the determination
of Hildebrand to support the claim of William of Normandy
to the crown of England, which was a master-stroke of his
policy ; for it brought that island into closer contact with
Rome, and strengthened the papal pretension to dispose of
temporal thrones. William fought under a banner blessed
by the pope, and founded the Norman dynasty in England,
1066. The conquest was concluded at Winchester by a sol-
emn coronation through three papal delegates, Easter, 1070.
But in Germany there arose a powerful opposition, not
indeed to the papacy, which was the common ground of all
parties, but to the Hildebrandian policy. This led to the
conflict between Gregory VII. and Henry IV. Alexander
threatened Henry with excommunication in case he persisted
in his purpose to divorce his queen Bertha.
CHAPTER II.
GREGORY VII, 1073-1085.
See literature in 3.
10. Hildebrand elected Pope. His Views on the Situation.
ALEXANDER II. died April 21, 1073, and was buried in
the basilica of St. John in Lateran on the following day.
The city, usually so turbulent after the death of a pope,
was tranquil. Hildebrand ordered a three days' fast with
litanies and prayers for the dead, after which the cardinals
were to proceed to an election. Before the funeral service
was closed, the people shouted, " Hildebrand shall be pope! "
He attempted to ascend the pulpit and to quiet the crowd,
but Cardinal Hugo Candidus anticipated him, and declared:
" Men and brethren, ye know how since the days of Leo
IX. Hildebrand has exalted the holy Roman Church, and
defended the freedom of our city. And as we cannot find
for the papacy a better man, or even one that is his equal,
let us elect him, a clergyman of our Church, well known and
thoroughly approved amongst us." The cardinals and clergy
exclaimed in the usual formula, "St. Peter elects Gregory
(Hildebrand) pope." 1
This tumultuary election was at once legalized by the
cardinals. He was carried by the people as in triumph to
the church of S. Petrus ad Vincula, clothed with the pur-
1 The earliest account is given by Gregory himself in two letters written
April 24, 1073, and a third written April 26 to Wibert of Ravenna ( Reg. , I.
1-3). It is confirmed by Bonizo. Gregory frequently referred to his election
2t
10. HILDEBiiAND ELECTED POPE. 25
pie robe and tiara, and declared elected, as " a man eminent
in piety and learning, a lover of equity and justice, firm in
adversity, temperate in prosperity, according to the apostolic
precept (1 Tim. 3 : 2), ' without reproach . . . 'temperate, sober-
minded, chaste, given to hospitality, ruling his house well '
. . . already well brought up and educated in the bosom of
this mother Church, for his merits advanced to the office of
archdeacon, whom now and henceforth we will to be called
Gregory, Pope, and Apostolic Primate." l
It was eminently proper that the man /who^lor nearly a
quarter of a century had been the
should at last be pope in name as well as in fact. He might
have attained the dignity long before, if he had desired it. He
was then about sixty years old, when busy men begin to long
for rest. He chose the name Gregory in memory of his
departed friend whom he had accompanied as chaplain into
exile, and as a protest against the interference of the empire
in the affairs of the Church. 2 He did not ask the previous
confirmation of the emperor, but he informed him of his elec-
tion, and delayed his consecration long enough to receive the
consent of Henry IV., who in the meantime had become
as having been against his will. (See Mirbt, TFaAZ, etc., pp. 2, 42.) The
anti-Gregorian party made the slanderous accusation that he secured his
office by force and bribery, but not till the struggle between him and Henry
IV. had begun. The subject is thoroughly discussed by Mirbt in his Wahl
Gregors VII. p. 66. In his later work, Die Publizistik, p. 582, he again
pronounces Gregory's own account as " the most credible."
*The clauses, " the husband of one wife," as well as " having his children
in subjection," are omitted in the quotation from Paul's letter to Timothy.
They would be fatal to the papal theory of clerical celibacy. See the Latin
text in the Acta Sanctorum for May 25, Tom. VI. 117, from the "Acta Romse
10 Kalend. Maji." The cardinals concluded the declaration with the ques-
tions : " Placet vobis ? Placet. Vultis eum ? Volumus. Laudatis eum f
Laudamus."
2 From Bonizo's account it would seem that the cardinals gave him that
name ; but they probably ascertained his wishes beforehand, or anticipated
them. Wattenbach (p. 130) regards the assumption of the name Gregory as
an open insult to the empire and the Synod of Sutri, where Henry III. had
deposed three popes, including Gregory VI.
26 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
emperor. This was the last case of an imperial confirmation
of a papal election. 1
Hildebrand was ordained priest, May 22, and consecrated
pope, June 29, without any opposition. Bishop Gregory of
Vercelli, the German chancellor of Italy, attended the conse-
cration. The pope informed his friends, distinguished abbots,
bishops, and princes of his election, gave expression to his
feelings and views on his responsible position, and begged
for their sympathy and prayers. 2
He was overwhelmed, as he wrote to Duke Godfrey of
Lorraine (May 6, 1073), by the prospect of the task before
him; he would rather have died than live in the midst of such
perils ; nothing but trust in God and the prayers of good
men could save him from despair; for the whole world was
lying in wickedness; even the high officers of the Church, in
their thirst for gain and glory, were the enemies rather than
the friends of religion and justice. In the second year of his
pontificate, he assured his friend Hugo of Cluny (Jan. 22, 1075)
that he often prayed God either to release him from the
present life, or to use him for the good of mother Church,
and thus describes the lamentable condition of the times:
" The Eastern Church fallen from the faith, and attacked by the infidels
from without. In the West, South, or North, scarcely any bishops who have
obtained their office regularly, or whose life and conduct correspond to their
calling, and who are actuated by the love of Christ instead of worldly ambi-
tion. Nowhere princes who prefer God's honor to their own, and justice to
gain. The Romans, Longobards, and Normans among whom I live, as I
often told them, are worse than Jews and heathens. And when I look to
myself, I feel oppressed by such a burden of sin that no other hope of salva-
tion is left me but in the mercy of Christ alone." 8
1 This is Mirbt's view. The anti-Gregorian writers, reflecting the policy of
Henry IV., insisted that Gregory had not received the royal assent. The im-
perial theory was laid down at Brixen, 1080, that any one assuming to be
pope without such assent, was an apostate, si quis sine assensu romaniprin-
cipis papari prcesumeret, non papa sed apostata ab omnibus haberetur. See
Mirbt, Die Wahl, etc., pp. 29-38.
2 Jaffe", Hon. Greg. (1885), pp. 9 sqq.
Abridged from Ep., II. 49 ; Jaffa", p. 163 ; Migne, 148, 400.
11. THE GREGORIAN THEOCRACY. 27
This picture is true, and we need not wonder that he often
longed to retire to the quiet retreat of a convent. He adds
in the same letter that, if it were not for his desire to serve
the holy Church, he would not remain in* Rome, where Tie
had spent twenty years against his wish. He was thus sus-
pended between sorrow and hope, seized by a thousand storms,
living as a dying man. He compared himself to a sailor on
the high seas surrounded by darkness. And he wrote to
William the Conqueror, that unwillingly he had ascended
into the ship which was tossed on a billowy sea, with the vio-
lence of the winds and the fury of storms with hidden rocks
beneath and other dangers rising high in air in the distance. 1
The twj) f ejam^sjh^^
tration_ w^e_J;hejid^jCj^^ and the promo-
tion of moral reforms. In both these respects Gregory left
an abiding impression upon the thought and practice of
Latin Christendom. Even where we do not share his views
we cannot help but admire his moral force and invincible
courage.
11. The Gregorian Theocracy.
The Hildebrandian or Gregorian Church ideal is a theoc-
racy based upon the Mosaic model and the canon law. It is
the absolute sovereignty of the Church in this world, 'com-
manding respect and obedience by her moral purity and
ascetic piety. By the Church is meant the Roman Catholic
organization headed by the pope as the vicar of Christ ; and
this hierarchical organization is identified with the Kingdom
of God, in which men are saved from sin and death, and out-
side of which there is no ordinary salvation. No distinction
is made between the Church and the Kingdom, nor between
the visible and invisible Church. The Holy, Catholic, Apos-
tolic, Roman Church has been to popes as visible and tangi-
ble as the German Empire, or the Kingdom of France, or the
1.70.
28 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
Republic of Venice. Besides this Church no other is recog-
nized, not even the Greek, except as a schismatic branch of
the Roman.
This ideal is the growth of ages. It was prepared for by
pseudo-Isidor in the ninth, and by St. Augustine in the fifth
century.
St. Augustine, the greatest theological authority of the
Middle Ages, first identified the visible Catholic Church with
the City or Kingdom of God. In his great apologetic work,
De Civitate Dei, he traced the relation of this Kingdom to the
changing and passing kingdoms of this world, and furnished,
we may say, the programme of the mediaeval theocracy which,
in theory, is adhered to by the Roman Church to this day. 1
But Augustine was not an ecclesiastic like Cyprian and the
popes. He was more interested in theology than Church
policy; he had little to say about the papacy, and made a
suggestive distinction between " the true body of Christ " and
"the mixed body of Christ," which led the way to the Protes-
tant distinction (first made by Zwingli) between the visible
and invisible Church. 2 In the Hildebrandian controversy he
is quoted by both parties, and more frequently than any other
father; but neither Gregory nor his most zealous adherents
could quote Augustine in favor of their hierocratic theory of
the apostolic right to depose temporal sovereigns.
The pseudo-Isidorian Decretals went further: they iden-
tified the Catholic Church with the dominion of the papal
hierarchy, and by a series of literary fictions carried this
XIII., in his encyclical concerning the Christian constitution
of States (Immortale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885), defends the mediaeval theory of
Church and State, and refers to the authority of St. Augustine, as having in
his De Civitate Dei clearly set forth the true principles on this subject for all
time to come. See Schaff s edition of St. Augustine's Works, pref. to vol. II.
(New York, 1887). Comp. also Reuter, Augustinische Studien (Gotha, 1887),
pp. 106-152, and Mirbt., I. c., who has industriously collected the quotations
from Augustine by the friends and opponents of Gregory VII.
2 The influence of Augustine's theory upon Wyclif, Hus, and the Reform-
ers is shown in this Church History, vol. VI. 522 sqq.
11. THE GREGORIAN THEOCRACY. 29
system back to the second century; notwithstanding the
fact that the Oriental Church never recognized the claims
of the bishops of Rome beyond that of a mere primacy of
honor among equal patriarchs.
Gregory VII. actualized this politico-ecclesiastical system
more fully than any previous pope, and as far as human
energy and prudence would admit. The glory of the Church
was the all-controlling passion of his life. He held fast to it
in the darkest hours, and he was greatest in adversity. Of
earlier popes, Nicolas I. and Leo I. came nearest to him in
lofty pretensions. But in him papal absolutism assumed
flesh and blood. He was every inch a pope. He anticipated
the Vatican system of 1870; in one point he fell short of
it, in another point he went beyond it. He did not claim
infallibility in theory, though he assumed it in fact;, but he
did claim and exercise, as far as he could, an absolute" liu>
thority over the temporal powers of Christendom, which the
popes have long since lost, and can never regain.
Hildebrand was convinced that, however unworthy person-
ally, he was, in his official character, the successor of Peter,
and as such the vicar of Christ in the militant Church. 1 He
entirely identified himself with Peter as the head of the
apostolic college, and the keeper of the keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven ; but he forgot that in temporal affairs Peter was
an humble subject under a hostile government, and exhorted
the Christians to honor the king (1 Pet. 2 : 17) at a time
when a Nero sat on the throne. He constantly appealed to
the famous words of Christ,_^iatt.l^jJ.. 4 __19 r -AS if they
were" said TO himself. The pope inherits the lofty position
of Peter. He is the Rock of the Church. He is the uni-
versal bishop, a title against which the first Gregory pro-
tested as an auti- Christian presumption. He is intrusted
1 Gregory again and again expressed his feeling of personal un worthiness
in such expressions as cui licet indigni et nolentes prcesidemus, Reg., 1, 18,
70, etc. ; Migne. 300, 344, etc.
30 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
with the care of all Christendom (including the Greek
Church, which never acknowledged him). He has absolute
< and final jurisdiction, and is responsible only to God, and
to no earthly tribunal. He alone can depose and reinstate
bishops, and his legates take precedence of all bishops. He
is the supreme arbiter in questions of right and wrong in
the whole Christian world. He is above all earthly sover-
eigns. He can wear the imperial insignia. He can depose
kings and emperors, and absolve subjects from their oath of
allegiance to unworthy sovereigns.
These and similar claims are formulated in a document of
twenty-seven brief propositions preserved among Gregory's
letters, which are of doubtful genuineness, but correctly
express his views, 1 and in a famous letter to Hermann, bishop
of Metz.
Among his favorite Scripture quotations, besides the
prophecy about Peter (Matt. 16 : 18, 19), are two passages
from the Old Testament : the words of the prophet Samuel
to Saul, which suited his attitude to rebellious kings (1 Sam.
15 : 23) : " Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubborn-
ness is as idolatry and teraphim ; because thou hast rejected
the word of the Lord, he has also rejected thee from being
king " ; and the words of the prophet Jeremiah (48 : 10) :
j " Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently,
r. and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood."
, Y^" He meant the spiritual sword chiefly, but also the temporal,
if necessary. He would have liked to lead an army of sol-
diers of St. Peter for the conquest of the Holy Land, and
the subjection of all rebellious monarchs. He projected the
first crusade, which his second successor carried out.
1 Dictatus Papce, Migne, 148, 407 sq. ; Mirbt, Quellen, p. 113. Comp. the
note of Gieseler, II. B. 7 (Germ. ed.). I quote a few: 12. Quod illi liceat
imperatores deponere. 22. Quod Bomana Ecclesia numquam erravit, nee in
perpetuum, Scriptura testante, errabit. 26. Quod catholicus non habeatur,
qui non concordat Ecclesice Romance. 27. Quod a fldelitate iniquorum
subjectos potest absolvere.
11. THE GREGORIAN THEOCRACY. 31
We must consider more particularly his views on the rela-
tion of Church and State. Public opinion in the Middle
Ages believed neither in co-ordination nor separation of the
two powers, but in the subordination of -one to the other
on the basis of union. Church and State were inseparably
interwoven from the days of Charlemagne and even of Con-
stantine, and both together constituted the Christian com-
monwealth, respublica Christiana. There was also a general
agreement that the Church was the spiritual, the State, the
y temporal power.
But the parties divided on the question of the precise
*J \rf boundary line. 1 The papal party maintained the theocratic
K superiority of the Church over the State : the imperial party
"> maintained the csesaropapistic superiority of the State, or
at least the equality of the two powers. It was a conflict
between priestcraft and statecraft, between sacerdotium and
imperium, the clergy and the laity. The imperialists empha-
sized the divine origin and superior antiquity of the civil
government, to which even Christ and the Apostles were
subject ; the hierarchical party disparaged the State, and put
the Church above it even in temporal affairs, when they
conflicted with the spiritual. Emperors like Otto I. and
Henry III. deposed and elected popes ; while popes like
Gregory VII. and Innocent III. deposed and elected em-
perors.
Gregory compares the Church to the sun, the State to the
moon, which borrows her light from the sun. 2 The episco-
pal dignity is above the kingly and imperial dignity, as
heaven is above the earth. He admits the necessity of the
State for the temporal government of men ; but in his con-
flict with the civil power he takes the pessimistic view that
1 See Mirbt, Publizistik, 572-579.
2 Letter of May 8, 1080, to William of England. Jaffe", 419 sq. ; Migne,
148, 569. Gregory also compared the priesthood to gold and royalty to lead,
Beg., IV. 2.
32 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
the State is the product of robbery, murder, and all sorts
of crimes, and a disturbance of the original equality, which
must be restored by the priestly power. He combined the
highest view of the Church and the papacy with the lowest
view of the State and the empire. 1
His theory of the papal power could not have been more
explicitly stated than when, writing to Sancho, king of Ara-
gon, he said that Jesus, the king of glory, had made Peter
lord over the kingdoms of the world. This principle he
consistently acted upon. 2 Henry IV. of Germany he twice
deposed and absolved his subjects from allegiance to him.
He concluded his second excommunication of Henry IV., at
the synod in Lent, March 7, 1080, with this startling perora-
tion :
44 And now, ye princes and fathers, most holy Apostles Peter and Paul,
deal ye with us in such wise that all the world may know and understand
that, having the power to bind and to loose in heaven, you have the like
power to take away empires, kingdoms, principalities, duchies, marquisates,
earldoms, and all manner of human rights and properties. . . . Having such
mighty power in spiritual things, what is there on earth that may transcend
your authority in temporal things ? And if ye judge the angels, who are
high above the proudest of princes, what may ye not do unto those beneath
them ? Let the kings and princes of the earth know and feel how great ye
are how exalted your power ! Let them tremble to despise the commands
of your Church !
4 ' But upon the said Henry do judgment quickly, that all men may know
that it is not by fortune or chance, but by your power, that he has fallen !
May he thus be confounded unto repentance, that his soul may be saved in
the day of the Lord ! "
1 In a letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz, March 15, 1081 (Reg., VIII.
21). , " Quis nesciat reges et duces ab illis habuisse principium, qui, Deum
ignorantes, superbia, rapinis, perfidia, homicidiis, postremo universis pene
sceleribus, mundi principe Diabolo videlicet agitante, super pares scilicet
homines, dominari cceca cupidine et intolerabili presumptione affectaverunt,"
St. Augustine likewise combines the two views of the origin of the State, and
calls it both a divine ordinance and a " grande latrocinium," an enslavement
of men in consequence of sin. See Renter, August, tftudien, I.e., 135 sq.
The letter to Hermann is also given in Mirbt, Quellen, 105-112.
2 Petrum dominus Jesus Christus, rex glorice, principem super regna
i constituit, Eeg., I. 63; Migne, 148, 339,
11. THE GREGORIAN THEOCRACY.
This is the extreme of hierarchical arrogance and severity.
Gregory always assumed the air of supreme authority over
kings and nobles as well as bishops and abbots, and expects
from them absolute obedience.
Sardinia and Corsica he treated as fiefs. 1 To the Spanish
princes, in 1073, he wrote that from of old Spain had be-
longed to St. Peter, and that it belonged to no mortal man but
to the Apostolic see. For had not the Holy See made a grant of
Spanish territory to a certain Evulus on condition of his con-
quering it from pagan hands ? 2 Alfonso of Castile and Sancho </
of Aragon, he reminded that St. Paul had gone to Spain and '^
that seven bishops, sent by Paul and Peter, had founded _- >,
the Christian Church in Spain. 3 Philip I., king of France, ^t&
he coolly told, that every house in his kingdom owed Peter's ^
Pence, and he threatened the king, in case he did not desist 1 ^
from simony, to place his realm under the interdict. 4 A few
months later in a letter to Manasses, archbishop of Rheims, he
called the king a rapacious wolf, the enemy of God and reli-
gion. 5 He summoned the king of Denmark, Sueno, to recognize
the dependence of his kingdom upon Rome and to send his
son to Rome that he might draw the sword against the ene-
mies of God, promising the son a certain rich province in
Italy for his services. 6 Boleslav, duke of Poland, he admon-
ished to pay certain monies to the king of Russia, whose son,
as we are informed in another letter, had come to Rome, to
secure his throne from the pope. 7 The Hungarian king,
Solomon, was reminded that King Stephen had given his
kingdom to St. Peter and that it belonged of right to Rome, 8
and he was sharply rebuked for having received his crown from
1 Reg., I. 29, VII. 10 ; Migne, 148, 312, 584.
2 Reg., I. 7 ; Migne, 289. 6 Lupus rapax, etc.
8 Reg., I. 64 ; Migne, 339. Reg., II. 51, 75 ; Migne, 403, 426.
* Reg., II. 5, 18, 32. 7 Reg., II. 73, 74 ; Migne, 423 sq.
8 Regnum Hungarice sanctce Romance ecclesiae proprium est a rege Steph-
ana beato Petri olim cum omni jure et potestate sua oblatum et devote
traditum, Reg., II. 13; Migne, 373.
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
the king of the Germans as a fief and not having sought it
from Rome. On Demetrius, duke of Dalmatia, Gregory
conferred the royal title on condition of his rendering a yearly
payment of two hundred pieces of silver to himself and his
papal successors. To Michael, Byzantine emperor, he wrote,
expressing the hope that the Church of Constantinople as
a true daughter might be reconciled to its mother, the
Church of Rome. 1 In other communications to the emperor,
Gregory made propositions concerning a crusade to rescue
the Holy Land.
For William the Conqueror, Gregory expressed great
affection, addressing him as " best beloved," carissime, but
solemnly reminded him that he owed his promotion to
the throne of England to the favor of the Roman see and
bidding him be prompt in the payment of Peter's Pence. 2
The proud Englishman replied that he owed his crown to God
and his own sword, not to the pope. He was willing to pay
Peter's Pence which his predecessors had paid, but fealty he
refused to pay as his predecessors had refused to pay it. 3
Unbiblical and intolerable as is Hildebrand's scheme of
papal absolutism as a theory of abiding validity, for the
Middle Ages it was better that the papacy should rule. It
was, indeed, a spiritual-tJespotism 7 butTrtrehecked a military
despotism which was the only alternative, and would have
been far worse. The Church, after all, represented the moral
and intellectual interests over against rude force and pas-
1 Reg., I. 18; Migne, 300.
2 Reg., I. 70, VII. 23 ; Migne, 345, 565 sqq., etc.
8 " Hubert, your legate in your behalf has bade me to do fealty to you
and your successors, and to think better in the matter of the money which
my predecessors were wont to send to the Roman Church. The one point I
agreed to, the other I did not agree to. Fealty I refused to do, nor will I do
it, nor do I find that my predecessors did it to your predecessors." The let-
ter of William the Conqueror to Gregory, written after 1076, the date being
uncertain. See Gee and Hardy, Documents of Eng. Ch. Hist., p. 57. The
efforts of Gregory to secure William's support in his controversy with Henry
IV. failed. Reg., VI. 30, VII. 1 ; Migne, 535, 545.
11. THE GREGORIAN THEOCRACY. 35 )
sions. She could not discharge her full duty unless she was
free and independent. The princes of the Middle Ages were
mostly ignorant and licentious despots; while the popes, in
their official character, advocated the cause of learning, the
sanctity of marriage, and the rights of the people. It was
a conflict of moral with physical power, of intelligence with
ignorance, of religion with vice.
The theocratic system made religion the ruling factor in
mediaeval Europe, and gave the Catholic Church an oppor- \
tunity to do her best. Ilex iaflneac^was, upon the whole, v ^t
beneficial. nThe enthusiasm for religion inspired the~cru- &
sadesL^arried Christianity to heatt^en savagea^Jbuilt the fco^
cathedrals and innumerabl^churchete^tfounded the universi-
ties and scholastic theolqgjgjfrmltiplied monastic orders and
charitable institution^>checked wild passionsCZ^softened
mannei(sjysthnulated discoveries and ipventiona^preserved
ancient classical and Christian Iiteratur4i%nd promoted civ-
ilization. The papacy struck its roots deep in the past, even
as far back as the second century. But if; was based in part
on pious frauds, as the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals and the
false Donation of Constantino.
The mediaeval theocracy__was at best a carnal anticipation
of theiml^n^rarreignTwhen all theTtingdoms oFthis world
shall obey tKepeacelul sceptre of Christ. The papacy de-
generated more and more into a worldly institution and an
intolerable tyranny over the hearts arid minds of men.
Human nature is too noble to be ruled by despotism, and
too weak to resist its temptations. The State has divine
authority as well as the Church, and the laity have rights
as well as the clergy. These rights came to the front as
civilization advanced and as the hierarchy abused its power.
It was the abuse of priestly authority for the enslavement
of men, the worldliness of the Church, and the degradation
and profanation of religion in the traffic of indulgences,
which provoked the judgment of the Reformation.
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
12. Gregory VII. as a Moral Reformer. Simony and
Clerical Marriage.
Y Gregory VII. must be viewed not only as a papal abso-
lutist, but alscras a moral reformer. It is the close connec-
tion of these two characters that gives him such pre-eminence
in history, and it is his zeal for moral reform that entitles
him to real respect ; while his pretension to absolute power
he shares with the most worthless popes.
His Church ideal formed a striking^contrast to the actual
condition of tFe Church, and he could not actualize it with-
out raising the clergy from the deep slough of demoralization
to a purer and higher plane.
-> Hj&xejforms w^r^jjrectej L agai.nst^ simony and Nicolaitism.
What he had done as Hildebrand, by way of "advice,"he now
carried out by official authority.
In the war on simony he was altogether right from the
standpoint of Protestant as well as Roman Catholic ethics.
The traffic in ecclesiastical dignities was an unmitigated
nuisance and scandal, and doubly criminal if exercised by
bishops and popes.
In his war on Nicolaitism, Gregory was sustained by
ancient laws of the Roman Church, but not by the genuine
(s^ spirit of Christianity. Enforced clerical celibacy has no
> foundation in the Bible, and is apt to defeat the sacerdotal
/ ideal which it was intended to promote. The real power and
y- usefulness of the clergy depend upon its moral purity, which
is protected and promoted by lawful matrimony, the oldest
S institution of God, dating from the paradise of innocence.
The motives of Gregory in his zeal for sacerdotal celibacy
were partly monkish and partly hierarchical. Celibacy was
an essential part of his ascetic ideal of a priest of God, who
must be superior to carnal passions and frailties, wholly
devoted to the interests of the Church, distracted by no
earthly cares, separated from his fellow-men, and command-
12. GREGORY VII. AS A MORAL REFORMER. 37
ing their reverence by angelic purity. Celibacy, moreover,
was an indispensable condition of the freedom of the hie-
rarchy. He declared that he could not free the Church from
the rule of the laity unless the priests were freed from their
wives. A married clergy is connected with the world by
social ties, and concerned for the support of the family; an
unmarried clergy is independent, has no home and aim but
the Church, and protects the pope like a standing army.
Another motive for opposing clerical marriage was to pre-
vent the danger of a hereditary caste which might appro-
ecclesiastical property to private uses and impoverish
the Church. The ranks of the hierarchy, even the chair of
St. Peter, were to be kept open to self-made men of the
humblest classes, but closed against hereditary claimants.
This was a practical recognition of the democratic principle
in contrast with the aristocratic feudalism of the Middle
Ages. Hildebrand himself, who rose from the lowest rank
without patronage to the papal throne, was the best illustra-
tion of this clerical democracy.
The power of the confessional, which is one of the pillars
of the priesthood, came to the aid of celibacy. Women are
reluctant to intrust their secrets to a priest who is a husband
and father of a family.
The married priests brought forward the example of the
priests of the Old Testament. This argument Damiani an-
swered by saying that the Hebrew priest was forbidden to
eat before offering sacrifices at the altar. How much more
unseemly it would be for a priest of the new order to soil
himself carnally before offering the sacraments to God !
The new order owed its whole time to the office and had
none left for marriage and the family life (1 Cor. 7:32).
Only an unmarried man who refuses to gratify carnal lusts
can fulfil the injunction to be a temple of God and avoid
quenching the Spirit (Eph. 4: 30 ; 1 Thess. 5 : 19). 1
1 See Mirbt, p. 278.
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
These motives controlled also- the. followers of Gregory
- ^^ ^^ ' ^^ ^ **
Gd the v tri*ffiTate~triuiiiph
of -^acerdotal celibacy. The question of abolishing it has
from time^o~time been agitated, and in the exceptional cases
of the Maronites and United Greeks the popes have allowed
single marriage in deference to old custom and for pruden-
tial reasons. Pope Pius II., before he ascended the papal
chair (1458-1464), said that good reasons required the pro-
hibition of clerical marriage, but better reasons required its
restoration. The hierarchical interest, however, has always
overruled these better reasons. Whatever may have been
the advantages of clerical celibacy, its evils were much
greater. The sexual immorality of the clergy, more than
anything else, undermined the respect of the people for their
spiritual guides, and was one of the chief causes of the
Reformation, which restored honorable clerical marriage,
created a pastoral home with its blessings, and established
the supremacy of conscience over hierarchical ambition.
From the standpoint of a zealous reformer like Gregory,
the morals of the clergy were certainly in a low condition.
No practice did he condemn with such burning words as
the open marriage of priests or their secret cohabitation with
women who were to all intents and purposes their wives.
Contemporary writers like Damiani, d. 1072, in his G-omor-
rhianus, give dark pictures of the lives of the priests.
While descriptions of rigid ascetics are to be accepted with
caution, the evidence abounds that in all parts of Latin
Christendom the law of priestly celibacy was ignored. 1
Modern Catholic historians, like Hefele 2 and Funk, 3 do
not hesitate to adduce the proofs of this state of affairs.
The pope Benedict IX., according to friendly testimony,
1 Mirbt, PuUizistik, 259, says that there was no such thing as a general
observance of celibacy in Western Europe.
2 Kirchengesch. , 339.
8 Kirchengesch., 271. It will be remembered that in Spain, in the eighth
century, King Witiza formally abolished the law of clerical celibacy.
18. THE ENFORCEMENT OB' SACERDOTAL CELIBACY. 39
was thinking of taking a wife openly. 1 The legislation,
opening with the canons of the Roman synod of 1049 held
by Leo IX., and emphasized at the Roman synod of 1059
held under Nicholas II., was given by Gregory VII. such a
prominence that one might have supposed the very existence
of the Church depended upon the enforcement of clerical
celibacy. There were bishops even in Italy who openly per-
mitted the marriage of priests, as was the case with Kuni-
bert of Turin. 2 In Germany, Bishop Poppo of Toul did not
conceal his quasi-marital relations which Gregory denounced
as fornication, 3 and the bishops of Spires and Lausanne had
hard work clearing themselves in public synods from a like
charge. Married priests were denominated by synods and
by Gregory VII. as " incontinent " or " concubinary priests." 4
Gregory spoke of Germany as afflicted with the " inveterate
disease of clerical fornication." 6 And what was true of
Italy and Germany was true of England.
13. The Enforcement of Sacerdotal Celibacy.
LITERATURE, special works : HENRY C. LEA : A Hist. Sketch of Sacerdotal
Celibacy in the Christian Church, Phil. 1867, 2d ed. Boston, 1884.
A. DRESDNER : Kultur und Sittengeschichte der italienischen Geistlichkeit
im 10 und 11 Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1890. MIRBT: Publizistik, pp. 239-
342 ; HEFELE, V. 20 sqq. The chief contemporary sources are DAMIANI :
de coelibatu sacerdotum, addressed to Nicolas II. and Gomorrhianus,
commended by Leo IX., and other writings, Gregory VIISs Letters.
Mirbt gives a survey of this literature, pp. 274-342.
Gregory completed, with increased energy and the weight
of official authority, the moral reform of the clergy as a
means for securing the freedom and power of the Church.
He held synod after synod, which passed summary laws
against simony and Nicolaitism, and denounced all carnal
1 So Bonizo of Sutri ad amicum, lib. V.
2 So Damiani. See Mirbt, 248. * Gregory, Reg., II. 10.
4 Incontinentes sacerdotes et levitce . . . sacerdotes concubinati.
6 Reg., II. 30.
40 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
connection of priests with women, however legitimate, as
sinful and shameful concubinage. Not contented with
synodical legislation, he sent letters and legates into all
countries with instructions to enforce the decrees. A synod
in Rome, March, 1074, opened the war. It deposed the
priests who had bought their dignity or benefices, prohibited
all future sacerdotal marriage, required married priests to
dismiss their wives or cease to read mass, and commanded
the laity not to attend their services. The same decrees had
been passed under Nicolas II. and Alexander II., but were
not enforced. The forbidding of the laity to attend mass
said by a married priest, was a most dangerous, despotic
measure, which had no precedent in antiquity. In an encyc-
lical of 1079 addressed to the whole realm of Italy and Ger-
many, Gregory used these violent words, " If there are presby-
ters, deacons, or sub-deacons who are guilty of the crime of
fornication (that is, living with women as their wives), we
forbid them, in the name of God Almighty and by the
authority of St. Peter, entrance into the churches, introitum
ecclesice, until they repent and rectify their conduct."
These decrees caused a storm of opposition. Many clergy-
men in Germany, as Lambert of Hersfeld reports, denounced
Gregory as a madman and heretic : he had forgotten the
words of Christ, Matt. 19 : 11, and of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 7 :
9 ; he wanted to compel men to live like angels, and, by doing
violence to the law of nature, he opened the door to indis-
criminate licentiousness. They would rather give up their
calling than their wives, and tauntingly asked him to look
out for angels who might take their place. The bishops
were placed in a most embarrassing position. Some, like
Otto of Constance, sympathized with the married clergy ;
and he went so far as to bid his clergy marry. 1 Others, like
a ln a letter to Sicardus, abp. of Aquileja, Jan. 24, 1074, Gregory com-
plained of princes who treated the Church as a servant-maid, quasi vilem
ancillam, etc. Reg., I. 42 ; Migne, 148, 322.
13. THE ENFORCEMENT OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY. 41
St. Altmann of Passau, were enthusiasts for sacerdotal celi-
bacy. Others, like Siegfridof Mainz, took a double attitude. 1
Archbishop Anno of Cologne agreed with the Hildebran-
dian principle, but deemed it impracticable or inopportune.
When the bishops lacked in zeal, Gregory stirred up the laity
against the simoniacal and concubinary priests. He exhorted
a certain Count Albert (October, 1074) to persist in enforcing
the papal orders, and commanded Duke Rudolf of Swabia
and Duke Bertolf of Carinthia, January, 1075, to prevent by
force, if necessary, the rebellious priests from officiating, no
matter what the bishops might say who had taken no steps
to punish the guilty. He thus openly encouraged rebellion
of the laity against the clergy, contrary to his fundamental
principle of the absolute rule of the hierarchy. He acted on
the maxim that the end sanctifies the means. Bishop Theodo-
ric of Verdun, who at first sided in the main with Gregory,
but was afterwards forced into the ranks of his opponents,
openly reproached him for these most extraordinary measures
as dangerous to the peace of the Church, to the safety of
the clerical order, and even to the Christian faith. Bishop
Henry of Spires denounced him as having destroyed the
episcopal authority, and subjected the Church to the mad-
ness of the people. When the bishops, at the Diet of Worms,
deposed him, January, 1076, one of the reasons assigned was
his surrender of the Church to the laity.
But the princes who were opposed to Henry IV. and de-
posed him at Tribur (1076), professed great zeal for the
Roman Church and moral reform. They were stigmatized
with the Milanese name of Patarini. Even Henry IV.,
though he tacitly protected the simoniacal and concubinary
clergy and received their aid, never ventured openly to
defend them ; and the anti-pope Clement III., whom, he
elected 1080, expressed with almost Hildebrandian severity
1 Gregory, Beg., II. 29, III. 4, commanded him to root out " clerical for-
nication."
42 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
his detestation of clerical concubinage, although he threat-
ened with excommunication the presumptuous laymen who
refused to take the sacrament from immoral priests. Bishop
Benzo, the most bitter of imperialists, did not wish to be
identified with the Nicolaitan heretics.
A contemporary writer, probably a priest of Treves, gives
a frightful picture of the immediate results of this reform,
with which he sympathized in principle. Slaves betrayed
masters and masters betrayed slaves, friends informed
against friends, faith and truth were violated, the offices of
religion were neglected, society was almost dissolved. The
peccant priests were exposed to the scorn and contempt of
the laity, reduced to extreme poverty, or even mutilated by
the populace, tortured and driven into exile. Their wives,
who had been legally married with ring and religious rites,
were insulted as harlots, and their children branded as
bastards. Many of these unfortunate women died from
hunger or grief, or committed suicide in despair, and were
buried in unconsecrated earth. Peasants burned the tithes
on the field lest they should fall into the hands of disobedient
priests, trampled the host under foot, and baptized their own
children. 1
In England, St. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, d.
988, had anticipated the reforms of Hildebrand, but only
with temporary success. William the Conqueror made no
effort to enforce sacerdotal celibacy, except that the charge
of concubinage was freely used as a pretext for removing
Anglo-Saxon prelates to make room for Norman rivals.
Lanfranc of Canterbury was a Hildebrandian, but could not
prevent a reformatory council at Winchester in 1076 from al-
lowing married priests to retain their wives, and it contented
itself with the prohibition of future marriages. This prohi-
bition was repeated at a council held in London, 1102, when
Anselm occupied the see of Canterbury. Married priests
i Hauck, III. 780 sq.; Mirbt. Publizistik, 269 sqq.; Hefele, V. 30 sqq.
13. THE ENFORCEMENT OP SACERDOTAL CELIBACY. 43
were required to dismiss their wives, and their children were
forbidden to inherit their fathers' churches. A profession
of chastity was to be exacted at ordination to the sub-
diaconate and the higher orders. But no punishment was
prescribed for the violation of these canons. Anselm main-
tained them vigorously before and after his exile. A new
council, called by King Henry at London, 1108, a year before
Anselm's death, passed severe laws against sacerdotal mar-
riage under penalties of deposition, expulsion from the
Church, loss of property, and infamy. The temporal power
was pledged to enforce this legislation. But Eadmer, the
biographer of Anselm, sorrowfully intimates that the result
was an increase of shocking crimes of priests with their
relatives, and that few preserved that purity with which
Anselm had labored to adorn his clergy.
In Spain, which was as much isolated from the Continent
by the Pyrenees as England by the sea, clerical celibacy was
never enforced before this period. The Saracenic invasion
and subsequent struggles of the Christians were unfavorable
to discipline. A canon of Compostella, afterwards bishop of
Mondonego, describes the contemporary ecclesiastics at the
close of the eleventh century as reckless and violent men,
ready for any^crime, prompt to quarrel, and occasionally in-
dulging in mutual slaughter. The lower priests were gen-
erally married ; but bishops and monks were forbidden by a
council of Compostella, in 1056, all intercourse with women,
except with mothers, aunts, and sisters wearing the monas-
tic habit. Gregory VII. sent a legate, a certain Bishop
Amandus, to Spain to introduce his reforms, 1077. A
council at Girona, 1078, forbade the ordination of sons of
priests and the hereditary transmission of ecclesiastical bene-
fices. A council at Burgos, 1080, commanded married priests
to put away their wives. But this order seems to have been
a dead letter until the thirteenth century, when the code of
laws drawn up by Alfonso the Wise, known as " Las Siete
44 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
Partidas," punished sacerdotal marriage with deprivation of
function and benefice, and authorized the prelates to com-
mand the assistance of the secular power in enforcing this
punishment. " After this we hear little of regular marriage,
which was replaced by promiscuous concubinage or by per-
manent irregular unions." 1
In France the efforts of reform made by the predecessors
of Gregory had little effect. A Paris synod of 1074 declared
Gregory's decrees unbearable and unreasonable. 2 At a
stormy synod at Poitiers, in 1078, his legate obtained the
adoption of a canon which threatened with excommunication
all who should listen to mass by a priest whom they knew to
be guilty of simony or concubinage. But the bishops were
unable to carry out the canon without the aid of the secular
arm. The Norman clergy in 1072 drove the archbishop of
Rouen from a council with a shower of stones. William the
Conqueror came to his aid in 1080 at a synod of Lillebonne,
which forbade ordained persons to keep women in their
houses. But clerical marriages continued, the nuptials were
made public, and male children succeeded to benefices
by a recognized right of primogeniture. William the
Conqueror, who assisted the hopeless reform in Normandy,
prevented it in his subject province of Britanny, where the
clergy, as described by Pascal II., in the early part of the
twelfth century, were setting the canons at defiance and
indulging in enormities hateful to God and man.
At last, the Gregorian enforcement of sacerdotal celibacy
triumphed in the whole Roman Church, but at the fearful
sacrifice of sacerdotal chastity. The hierarchical aim was at-
tained, but not the angelic purity of the priesthood. The
private morals of the priest were sacrificed to hierarchical
ambition. Concubinage and licentiousness took the place of
holy matrimony. The acts of councils abound in complaints
of clerical immorality and the vices of unchastity and drunk-
1 Lea, p. 309. 2 importabilia ideoque irrationabilia.
14. THE WAR OVER INVESTITURE. 45
enness. " The records of the Middle Ages are full of the
evidences that indiscriminate license of the worst kind pre-
vailed throughout every rank of the hierarchy." 1 The
corruption again reached the papacy, especially in the fif-
teenth century. John XXIII. and Alexander VI. rivalled
in wickedness and lewdness the worst popes of the tenth and
eleventh centuries.
14. The War over Investiture.
The other great reform-scheme of Gregory aimed at the
complete emancipation of the Church from the bondage of
the secular power. His conception of the freedom of the
Church meant the slavery of the State. The State exercised
control over the Church by selling ecclesiastical dignities, or
the practice of simony, and by the investiture of bishops
and abbots ; that is, by the bestowal of the staff and ring. 2
These were the insignia of ecclesiastical authority; the staff
or crosier was the symbol of the spiritual rule of the bishop,
the ring the symbol of his mystical marriage with the Church.
The feudal system of the Middle Ages, as it developed
itself among the new races of Europe from the time of
Charlemagne, rested on land tenure and the mutual obliga-
tions of lord and vassal, whereby the lord, from the king
down to the lowest landed proprietor, was bound to protect
his vassal, and the vassal was bound to serve his lord. The
Church in many countries owned nearly or fully one-half of
the landed estate, with the right of customs, tolls, coinage
of money, etc., and was in justice bound to bear part of the
burden attached to land tenure. The secular lords regarded
themselves as the patrons of the Church, and claimed the
right of appointing and investing its officers, and of bestow-
ing upon them, not only their temporalia, but also the
insignia of their spiritual power. This was extremely offen-
sive to churchmen. The bishop, invested by the lord, became
1 Lea, p. 341. 2 investitura per baculum et annulum.
46 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
his vassal, and had to swear an oath of obedience, which
implied the duty of serving at court and furnishing troops
for the defence of the country. Sometimes a bishop had
hardly left the altar when his liege-lord commanded him
to gird on the sword. After the death of the bishop, the
king or prince used the income of the see till the election
of a successor, and often unduly postponed the election for
his pecuniary benefit, to the injury of the Church and the
poor. In the appointments, the king was influenced by polit-
ical, social, or pecuniary considerations, and often sold the
dignity to the highest bidder, without any regard to intel-
lectual or moral qualifications. The right of investiture was
thus closely connected with the crying abuse of simony, and
its chief source.
No wonder that Gregory opposed this investiture by lay-
men with all his might. Cardinal Humbert had attacked it
in a special book under Victor II. (1057), and declared it an
infamous scandal that lay-hands, above all, female hands,
should bestow the ring and crosier. He insisted that investi-
ture was a purely spiritual function, and that secular princes
have nothing to do with the performance of functions that
have something sacramental about them. They even commit
sacrilege by touching the garments of the priest. By the
exercise of the right of investiture, princes, who are properly
the defenders of the Church, had become its lords and rulers.
Great evils had arisen out of this practice, especially in
Italy, where ambitious priests lingered about the antecham-
bers of courts and practised the vice of adulation, vitium adu-
lationis. 1
The legislation against lay appointments was opened at
the Synod of Rheims, 1049, under the influence of Leo IX.
1 Humbert's work, adversus simoniacos, is given in libelli de lite and Migne,
vol. 153. Wido of Arezzo and Damiani expressed the same views. See
Mirbt, Publizistik, 463-471. Of those who received lay investiture it began
to be said " that they entered not in by the door," non per ostium intra-
verant.
15. GREGORY VII. AND HENRY IV. 47
It declared that no priest should be promoted to office with-
out the election of clergy and people. Ten years later, 1059,
the Synod of Rome pronounced any appointment of cleric
or presbyter to benefice invalid, which was made by a lay-
man. 1 The following year, 1060, the French synods of
Tours and Vienne extended the prohibition to bishops. It
remained for Gregory to stir up all Europe over the question
who had the right of investiture.
By abolishing this custom, Gregory hoped to emancipate
the clergy from the vassalage of the State, and the property
of the Church from the feudal supervision of the prince, as
well as to make the bishops the obedient servants of the
pope.
The contest continued under the following popes, and was
at last settled by the compromise of Worms (1122). The
emperor yielded only in part ; for to surrender the whole
property of the Church to the absolute power of the pope,
would have reduced civil government to a mere shadow. On
the other hand, the partial triumph of the papacy contributed
very much to the secularization of the Church.
15. Gregory VII. and Henry IV.
The conflict over investiture began at a Roman synod in
Lent (Feb. 24-28), 1075, and brought on the famous collision
with Henry IV., in which priestcraft and kingcraft strove for
mastery. The pope had the combined advantages of supe-
rior age, wisdom, and moral character over this unfortunate
prince, who, when a mere boy of six years (1056), had lost
his worthy father, Henry III., had been removed from the
care of his pious but weak mother, Agnes, and was spoilt in
his education. Henry had a liveLy mind and noble impulses,
but was despotic and licentious. Prosperity made him proud
and overbearing, while adversity cast him down. His life
1 utper laicos nullo modo quilibet clericus aut presbyter obtineat ecclesiam
nee gratis necpretio, Mansi, XIX. 898.
48 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
presents striking changes of fortune. He ascended and de-
scended twice the scale of exaltation and humiliation. He
first insulted the pope, then craved his pardon; he rebelled
again against him, triumphed for a while, was twice excom-
municated and deposed; at last, forsaken and persecuted
by his own son, he died a miserable death, and was buried
in unconsecrated earth. The better class of his own sub-
jects sided against him in his controversy with the pope.
The Saxons rose in open revolt against his tyranny on
the very day that Hildebrand was consecrated (June 29,
1073).
This synod of 1075 forbade the king and all laymen
having anything to do with the appointment of bishops or
assuming the right of investiture. 1 A synod held in Novem-
ber, 1075, positively forbade bishops, abbots, and other eccle-
siastics receiving ecclesiastical appointments from king or
any temporal lord whatsoever. At the same synod, Gregory
excommunicated five counsellors of Henry for practising
simony. 2
The king, hard pressed by the rebellious Saxons, at first
yielded, and dismissed the five counsellors ; but, as soon as
he had subdued the rebellion (June 5, 1075), he recalled
them, and continued to practise shameful simony. He paid
his soldiers from the proceeds of Church property, and
adorned his mistresses with the diamonds of sacred vessels.
The pope exhorted him by letter and deputation to repent,
1 This statement is based upon the authority of Arnulf of Milan. The
decree itself is lost. See Mirbt, Publizistik, 492. Arnulf says, papa . . .
palam interdicit regi jus deinde habere aliquod in dandis episcopatibus
omnesque laicas personas ab investituris ecclesiarum summovet.
2 " Si quis deinceps episcopatum vel abbatiam de manu alicujus laicce per-
sonce susceperit, nullatenus inter Episcopos vel Abbates habeatur ... Si
quis Imperatorum, fiegum, Ducum, Marchionum, Comitum, vel quilibet
scecularium potestatum aut personarum investituram episcopatus vel alicujus
ecclesiasticai dignitatis dare prcesumserit, ejusdem sententice vinculose adstric-
tum sciat," 1 Pagi, Crit. ad ann. 1075, No. 2 ; Watterich, I. 365 ; Hefele, V.
47 ; Reg., VI. 5.
15. GREGORY VII. AND HENRY IV. 49
and threatened him with excommunication. The king re*
ceived his legates most ungraciously, and assumed the tone
of open defiance. Probably with his knowledge, Cencius, a
cousin of the imperial prefect in Rome, shamefully maltreated
the pope, seized him at the altar the night before Christmas,
1075, and shut him up in a tower ; but the people released
him and put Cencius to flight.
Henry called the bishops and abbots of the empire to a
council at Worms, under the lead of Archbishop Siegfried of
Mainz, Jan. 24, 1076. This council deposed Gregory with-
out giving him even a hearing, on the ground of slanderous
charges of treason, witchcraft, covenant with the devil, and
impurity, which were brought against him by Hugo Blancus
(Hugh Leblanc), a deposed cardinal. It was even asserted
that he ruled the Church by a senate of women, Beatrix,
Matilda of Tuscany, and Agnes, the emperor's mother.
Only two bishops dared to protest against the illegal pro-
ceeding. The Ottos and Henry III. had deposed popes, but
not in such a manner.
Henry secured the signatures of the disaffected bishops of
Upper Italy at a council in Piacenza. He informed Gregory
of the decree of Worms in an insulting letter:
" Henry, king, not by usurpation, but by God's holy ordinance, to Hilde-
brand, not pope, but a false monk. How darest thou, who hast won thy
power through craft, flattery, bribery, and force, stretch forth thy hand
against the Lord's anointed, despising the precept of the true pope, St. Peter :
' Fear God, honor the king ' ? Thou who dost not fear God, dishonorest me
whom He has appointed. Condemned by the voice of all our bishops, quit
the apostolic chair, and let another take it, who will preach the sound doc-
trine of St. Peter, and not do violence under the cloak of religion. I, Henry,
by the grace of God, king, with all my bishops, say unto thee, Come down,
come down ! " *
At the same time Henry wrote to the cardinals and the
Roman people to aid him in the election of a new pope.
1 " Descende, descended Bruno, De bello Saxonico, in Pertz, VII. 352 sq.
There are several variations of the letter of Henry, but the tone of imperious
defiance and violence is the same.
50 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
Roland, a priest of Parma, brought the letter to Rome at
the end of February, as Gregory was just holding a synod of
a hundred and ten bishops, and concluded his message with
the words, " I tell you, brethren, that you must appear at
Pentecost before the king to receive from his hands a pope
and father; for this man here is not pope, but a ravening
wolf." This produced a storm of indignation. The prelates
drew swords and were ready to kill him on the spot ; but
Gregory remained calm, and protected him against violence.
On the next day (February 22) the pope excommunicated
and deposed Henry in the name of St. Peter, arid absolved
his subjects from their oath of obedience. He published the
ban in a letter to all Christians. The sentence of deposition
is as follows :
"Blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, incline thine ear unto me, and
hear me, thy servant, whom from childhood thou didst nurse and protect
against the wicked to this day. Thou and my lady, the mother of God, and
thy brother, St. Paul, are my witnesses that the holy Roman Church has
drawn me to the helm against my will, and that I have not risen up like a
robber to thy seat. Rather would I have been a pilgrim my whole life long
than have snatched to myself thy chair on account of temporal glory and in
a worldly spirit. . . . By thy intercession God has intrusted me with the
power to bind and to loose on earth and in heaven.
" Therefore, relying on this trust, for the honor and security of the Church,
in the name of the Almighty Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I do prohibit
Henry, king, son of Henry the emperor, from ruling the kingdom of the Teu-
tons and of Italy, because with unheard-of pride he has lifted himself up
against thy Church ; and I release all Christians from the oath of allegiance
to him which they have taken, or shall take, and I forbid that any shall serve
him as king. For it is fitting that he who will touch the dignity of the Church
should lose his own. And inasmuch as he has despised obedience by associ-
ating with the excommunicate, by many deeds of iniquity, and by spurning
the warnings which I have given him for his good, I bind him in the bands of
anathema ; that all nations of the earth may know that thou art Peter, and
that upon thy rock the Son of the living God hath built His Church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 1
The empress-widow was present when the anathema was
pronounced on her son. At the same time the pope excom-
1 Bernried, Vita Greg., c. 68 sq. (in Migne, 148, p. 74) ; Jaffe", 223;
Mirbt, Quellen, 100 ; Hefele, V. 70 sqq.
15. GREGORY VII. AND HENRY IV. 51
municated all the German and Italian bishops who had de-
posed him at Worms and Piacenza.
This was a most critical moment, and the signal for a
deadly struggle between the two greatest potentates in
Christendom. Never before had such a tremendous sen-
tence been pronounced upon a crowned head. The deposi-
tion of Childeric by Pope Zacharias was only the sanction
of the actual rule of Pepin. Gregory threatened also King
Philip of France with deposition, but did not execute it.
Now the heir of the crown of Charlemagne was declared
an outlaw by the successor of the Galilean fisherman,
and Europe accepted the decision. There were not want-
ing, indeed, voices of discontent and misgivings about the
validity of a sentence which justified the breaking of a
solemn oath. All conceded the papal right of excommuni-
cation, but not the right of deposition. If Henry had
commanded the respect and love of his subjects, he might
have defied Gregory. But the religious sentiment of the
age sustained the pope, and was far less shocked by the
papal excommunication and deposition of the king than by
the royal deposition of the pope. It was never forgotten
that the pope had crqwned Charlemagne, and it seemed
natural that his power to bestow implied his power to
withhold or to take away. 1
Gregory had not a moment's doubt as to the justice of his
act. He invited the faithful to pray, and did not neglect the
dictates of worldly prudence. He strengthened his military
force in Rome, and reopened negotiations with Robert Guis-
card and Roger. In Northern Italy he had a powerful ally
in Countess Matilda, who, by the recent death of her hus-
band and her mother, had come into full possession of vast
dominions, and furnished a bulwark against the discontented
1 The papal sentence against Henry made a profound impression upon
Western Europe. Bon izo says, universus noster romanus orbis cnntremuit.
postquam de banno regis ad aurcs pcrsonuit, vulgi. See Mirbt, 1 ">!>.
52 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
clergy and nobility of Lombardy and an invading army from
Germany. 1
When Henry received the tidings of the sentence of ex-
communication and deposition, he burst into a furious rage,
abused Gregory as a hypocrite, heretic, murderer, perjurer,
adulterer, and threatened to fling back the anathema upon
his head. William, bishop of Utrecht, had no scruples in
complying with the king's wishes, and from the pulpit of his
cathedral anathematized Gregory as " a perjured monk who
had dared to lift up his head against the Lord's anointed."
Henry summoned a national council to Worms on Whitsun-
day (May 15) to protest against the attempt of Gregory to
unite in one hand the two swords which God had separated. 2
This was the famous figure for the spiritual and temporal
power afterwards often employed by the popes, who claimed
that God had given both swords to the Church, the spirit-
ual sword, to be borne by her; the temporal, to be wielded
by the State for the Church, that is, in subjection and obe-
dience to the Church.
The council at Worms was attended by few bishops,
and proved a failure. A council in Mainz, June 29, turned
J The excommunication of Henry in 1076 and again in 1080 called forth a
controversial literature of some proportions, Mirbt, Publizistik, 134-239, as
did Gregory's attitude towards simony and clerical celibacy. The anti-Grego-
rians took the ground that the excommunication was unjust and even called
in question the pope's right to excommunicate a king. Gregory's letters
make reference to these objections. Writing to Hermann of Metz, Beg., IV.
2, Gregory said that there were some who openly declared that a king
should not be excommunicated, regem non oportet excommunicari. Gregory
justified his act on the ground of the king's companionship with excommuni-
cated persons, his refusal to offer repentance for crimes, and the rupture of
the unity of the Church which resulted from the king's course, Reg., IV. 1,
etc. The Council of Tribur, Oct. 16, 1076, discussed the questions whether a
pope might excommunicate a king and whether Gregory had acted justly
in excommunicating Henry. It answered both questions in the affirmative.
A hundred years after the event, Otto of Freising, Gesta Friderici, I. , speaks
of the sentence as unheard of before, quo numquam ante hcec tempora hujus-
modi sententiam in principem romanum promulgatam cognoverat.
2 Beg., IV. 2 ; Migne, 148, 455.
16. CANOSSA. 53
out no better, and Henry found it necessary to negotiate.
Saxony was lost; prelates and nobles deserted him. A diet at
Tribur, an imperial castle near Mainz, held Oct. 16, 1076,
demanded that he should submit to the pope", seek absolution
from him within twelve months from the date of excommu-
nication, at the risk of forfeiting his crown. He should then
appear at a diet to be held at Augsburg on Feb. 2, 1077,
under the presidency of the pope. Meanwhile he was to
abide at Spires in strict privacy, in the sole company of his
wife, the bishop of Verdun, and a few servants chosen by
the nobles. The legates of Gregory were treated with
marked respect, and gave absolution to the excommunicated
bishops, including Siegfried of Mainz, who submitted to the
pope.
Henry spent two dreary months in seclusion at Spires,
shut out from the services of the Church and the affairs of
the State. At last he made up his mind to seek absolution,
as the only means of saving his crown. There was no time
to be lost; only a few weeks remained till the Diet of Augs-
burg, which would decide his fate.
16. ^ Canossa. 1077.
The winter of 1076-1077 was one of the coldest and longest
within the memory of men the Rhine being frozen to a
solid mass from November till April and one of the most
memorable in history being marked by an event of typical
significance. The humiliation of the head of the German
Empire at the feet of the bishop of Rome at Canossa means
the subjection of the State to the Church and the triumph of
the Hildebrandian policy.
A few days before Christinas, Henry IV. left Spires on a
journey across the Alps as a penitent, seeking absolution from
the pope. He was accompanied by his wife with her infant
son Conrad (born August, 1071) and one faithful servant.
Bertha, daughter of the margrave Odo of Turin and Adelheid
54 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
of Susa, was betrothed to Henry in 1055 at Zurich, and mar-
ried to him, July 13, 1066. She was young, beautiful, vir-
tuous, and amiable; but he preferred to live with mistresses;
and three years after the marriage he sought a divorce, with
the aid of the unprincipled archbishop Siegfried of Mainz.
The pope very properly refused his consent. The king gave
up his wicked intention, and became attached to Bertha.
She was born to love and to suffer, and accompanied him
as a comforting angel through the bitter calamities of his
life.
The royal couple passed through Burgundy and Susa un-
der the protection of Count William and the mother of Ber-
tha, and crossed Mont Cenis. The queen and her child
were carried up and lowered down the icy slopes in rough
sledges of oxhide; some horses were killed, but no human
lives lost. When Henry reached the plains of Lombardy, he
was received with joy by the anti-Hildebrandian party; but
he hurried on to meet the successor of Peter, who alone
could give him absolution.
He left his wife and child at Reggio, and, accompanied by
his mother-in-law and a few friends, he climbed up the steep
hill to Canossa, where Gregory was then stopping on his
journey to the Diet at Augsburg, waiting for a safe-conduct
across the Alps.
Canossa, now in ruins, was an impregnable fortress of the
Countess Matilda, south of Reggio, on the northern slope of
the Apennines, surrounded by three walls, and including a
castle, a chapel, and a convent. 1
The pope had already received a number of excommuni-
cated bishops and noblemen, and given or promised them ab-
1 The castle was destroyed by the inhabitants of Reggio in 1265. The
site affords a magnificent view of the Apennines towards the south, and of the
plain of the Po towards the north, and the cities of Parma, Reggio, and
Modena. An excursion from Reggio to Canossa and back can be made in
eight hours. For Gregory's own account of the meeting, see Reg., IV. 2, in
Migne, 148, 466, and Mirbt, Quellen, 101. See also Hauck, III. 792 sqq.
16. CANOSSA. 55
solution after the case of the chief sinner against the majesty
of St. Peter should be decided.
Henry arrived at the foot of the castle-steep, Jan. 21, 1077,
when the cold was severe and the ground covered with snow.
He had an interview with Matilda and Hugo, abbot of Cluny,
his godfather, and declared his willingness to submit to the
pope if he was released from the interdict. But Gregory
would only absolve him on condition that he would surren-
der to him his crown and forever resign the royal dignity.
The king made the last step to secure the mercy of the pope:
he assumed the severest penances which the Church requires
from a sinner, as a sure way to absolution. For three days,
from the 25th to the 28th of January, he stood in the court
between the inner walls as a penitent suppliant, with bare
head and feet, in a coarse woollen shirt, shivering in the cold,
and knocked in vain for entrance at the gateway, which still
perpetuates in its name, " Porta di penitenza," the memory
of this event. 1
The stern old pope, as hard as a rock and as cold as the
snow, refused admittance, notwithstanding the earnest en-
treaties of Matilda and Hugo, till he was satisfied that the
cup of humiliation was drained to the dregs, or that further
resistance would be impolitic. He first exacted from Henry,
as a condition of absolution, the promise to submit to his de-
cision at the approaching meeting of the German nobles un-
der the presidency of the pope as arbiter, and to grant him
and his deputies protection on their journey to the north.
In the meantime he was to abstain from exercising the func-
tions of royalty. 2
1 "/Wt'c," says Berthold (Momim. Germ. SS., V. 289), "laneis indutus,
nudis pedibus, frigorosus, usque in diem tertium foris extra castellum cum
suis hospitabatur.' 1 '' During the night the king was under shelter. See
Hefele, V ; 94 sq.
2 The last point is omitted by Berthold, but expressly mentioned by Lam-
bert of Hersfeld, and confirmed by Gregory, who says in his account of the
Canossa event to the German prelates and princes, that he received Henry
56 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
The king made the promise, and two bishops and several
nobles, in his behalf, swore upon sacred relics that he would
keep it. Hugo, being a monk, could not swear, but pledged
his word before the all-seeing God. Hugo, the bishops,
nobles, and the Countess Matilda and Adelheid signed the
written agreement, which still exists.
After these preliminaries, the inner gate was opened. The
king, in the prime of life, the heir of many crowned mon-
archs, and a man of tall and noble presence, threw himself
at the feet of the gray-haired pope, a man of low origin and
of small and unimpressive stature, who by his word had dis-
armed an empire. He burst into tears, and cried " Spare
me, holy father, spare me ! " The company were moved to
tears ; even the iron pope showed signs of tender compassion.
He heard the confession of Henry, raised him up, gave him
absolution and his apostolic blessing, conducted him to the
chapel, and sealed the reconciliation by the celebration of
the sacrifice of the mass.
Some chroniclers add the following incident, which has
often been repeated, but is very improbable. Gregory, before
partaking of the sacrament, called upon God to strike him
dead if he were guilty of the crimes charged on him, and,
after eating one-half of the consecrated wafer unharmed, he
offered the other half to Henry, requesting him to submit
to the same awful ordeal ; but the king declined it, and
referred the whole question to the decision of a general
council. 1
only into the communion of the Church, without reinstating him in his reign
(losum ei communionem redidi, non tamen in regno . . . instauravi') , and
without binding the faithful to their oath of allegiance, reserving this to fu-
ture decision. Jaffe", p. 402 ; Hefele, V. 96. The same view he expresses in
the sentence of the second excommunication. In view of these facts it is
strange that Giesebrecht (III. 403) should discredit the report of Lambert,
and hold that Henry regained with the absolution also the royal prerogatives.
1 This story, first told by Lambert of Hersfeld, who in the main sided with
Gregory against Henry, is discredited by Giesebrecht, III. 401 ; Ranke,
VII. 284 ; Mirbt, 194-199 ; and the Catholic historians, DSllinger and Hefele
16. CANOSSA. 57
After mass, the pope entertained the king courteously at
dinner and dismissed him with some fatherly warnings and
counsels, and with his renewed apostolic blessing.
Henry gained his object, but at the sacrifice of his royal
dignity. He confessed by his act of humiliation that the
pope had a right to depose a king and heir of the imperial
crown, and to absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance.
The head of the State acknowledged the temporal supremacy
of the Church. Canossa marks the deepest humiliation of
the State and the highest exaltation of the Church, we
mean the political papal Church of Rome, not the spiritual
Church of Christ, who wore a crown of thorns in this world
and who prayed on the cross for his murderers.
Gregory acted on the occasion in the sole interest of the
hierarchy. His own friends, as we learn from his official
account to the Germans, deemed his conduct to be " tyranni-
cal cruelty, rather than apostolic severity." He saw in Henry
the embodiment of the secular power in opposition to the
ecclesiastical power, and he achieved a signal triumph, but
only for a short time. He overshot his mark, and was at
last expelled from Rome by the very man against whom he
had closed the gate.
His relation to Matilda was political and ecclesiastical.
The charge of his enemies that he entertained carnal inti-
macy with her is monstrous and incredible, considering his
advanced age and unrelenting war against priestly concubi-
nage. 1 The countess was the most powerful princess in
(V. 98), reject it as a fable. The pope had no need to protest his innocence,
and had referred the charges against the king to a German tribunal ; the king
had previously promised him to appear before this tribunal ; his present pur-
pose was simply to get rid of the interdict, so as to be free to act. By declining
the ordeal he would have confessed his guilt and justified the pope, and super-
seded the action of the German tribunal. On the historical value of Lambert's
Annales, see Giesebrecht, III. 1030-1032, and Wattenbach, Deutschlands,
Geschichtsquellen, II. 87 sqq. Gregorovius repeats the story as authentic.
1 Lambert refutes this slander (M, G., V. 257), and the best modern
historians, Protestant as well as Catholic, reject it. See Neander, Ranke
58 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
Northern Italy, and afforded to the pope the best protection
against a possible invasion of a Northern army. She was
devoted to Hildebrand as the visible head of the Church,
and felt proud and happy to aid him. In 1077 she made a
reversionary grant of her dominions to the patrimony of
Peter, and thus increased the fatal gift of Constantine, from
which Dante derives the evils of the Church. She contin-
ued the war with Henry, and aided Conrad and Henry V.
in the rebellion against their father. In the political interest
of the papacy she contracted, in her fifty-fifth year, a second
marriage with Guelph, a youth of eighteen, the son of the
Duke of Bavaria, the most powerful enemy of Henry IV.
(1089); but the marriage, it seems, was never consummated,
and was dissolved a few years afterwards (1095). She died,
1115. It is supposed by many that Dante's Matilda, who
carried him over the river Lethe to Beatrice, is the famous
countess ; l but Dante never mentions Gregory VII., probably
on account of his quarrel with the emperor.
Canossa has become a proverbial name for the triumph of
priestcraft over kingcraft. 2 Streams of blood have been shed
(VII. 280), and Hefele (V. 67 sq.). Ranke says : " Solche Verhdltnisse giebt
es ja zwischen Individuen beiderlei Geschlechtes, die sich nur auf geistigem
linden entwickeln, in ivelchen ohne sinnUche, Annaherung die tiefste inne.re
Vereinignny der G-esinnungen und Ueberseuynngen besteht. Die Markgrqfin
glaubte an die Wahrhaftigkeit und den geistigen Beruf des Papstes, und der
Papst andererseits bedurfte ihrer Hulfe."
1 Pur0r., XXVIII. 40, XXXII. 92 ; XXXII. 28, 82, XXXIII. 119, 121.
2 Mirbt, Publizistik, 181-200, seeks to make out that Henry's act at Canossa
was regarded by his age as an act of humility and not of humiliation. The
contemporary writers speak of it as an act of unheard of and wonderful
humility, " mira inaudita humilitas, officium humilitatis." In view of the
profound reverence for the Church which prevailed it may be taken as cer-
tain that the people looked upon it as an act of humble piety. But for
Henry it was a different thing. As Mirbt agrees, the king was not moved by
deep religious concern but by a desire to hold on to his crown. For him
Canossa was a humiliation and before the bar of historic judgment the act
wherein the State prostrated itself at the feet of the pope must be regarded as
a humiliation. For other instances of princely submission to the pope, see
Mirbt, p. 198, note.
17. RENEWAL OF THE CONFLICT. 59
to wipe out the disgrace of Henry's humiliation before Hil-
debrand. The memory of that scene was revived in the Cul-
turkampf between the State of Prussia and the Vatican from
1870 to 1887. At the beginning of the conflict, Prince Bis-
marck declared in the Prussian Chambers that "he would never
go to Canossa"; but ten years afterwards he found it politic
to move in that direction, and to make a compromise with
Leo XIII., who proved his equal as a master of diplomacy.
The anti-papal May-laws were repealed, one by one, till noth-
ing is left of them except the technical Anzeigepflicht, a mod-
ern term for investiture. The Roman Church gained new
strength in Prussia and Germany from legal persecution, and
enjoys now more freedom and independence than ever, and
much more than the Protestant Church, which has innocently
suffered from the operation of the May -laws.
17. Renewal of the Conflict. Two Kings and Two Popes.
The result of Canossa was civil war in Germany and Italy :
king against king, pope against pope, nobles against nobles,
bishops against bishops, father against son, and son against
father. It lasted several years. Gregory and Henry died
in exile. Gregory w#s defeated by Henry, Henry by his
own rebellious son. The long wars of the Guelphs and the
Ghibellines originated in that period. The Duke Guelph
IV. of Bavaria was present at Forchheim when Henry was
deposed, and took up arms against him. The popes sided
with the Guelphs against the Hohenstaufen emperors and
the Ghibellines.
The friends and supporters of Henry in Lombardy and
Germany were dissatisfied, and regarded his humiliation as
an act of cowardice, and the pope's conduct as an insult to
the German nation and the royal crown. His enemies, a
small number of Saxon and Swabian nobles and bishops,
assembled at Forchheim, March 13, 1077, and, in the pres-
ence of two legates of the pope, but without his express
60 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
authority, offered the crown of Germany to Rudolf, Duke
of Swabia, Henry's brother-in-law, but on two important
conditions (which may be traced to the influence of the
pope's legates), namely, that he should denounce a hereditary
claim to the throne, and guarantee the freedom of ecclesias-
tical appointments. He was crowned March 26, at Mainz,
by Archbishop Siegfried, but under bad omens : the conse-
crated oil ran short, the Gospel was read by a simoniacal
deacon, the citizens raised a tumult, and Rudolf had to
make his escape by night with Siegfried, who never returned.
He found little support in Southern Germany, and went to
Henry's enemies in Saxony.
Henry demanded from the pope the ban over the robber of
his crown, but in vain. He refused him the promised safe-
conduct to Germany, acted as king, crossed the Alps, and
defeated Rudolf in a battle at Melrichstadt in Franconia,
Aug. 7, 1078, but was defeated by him near Muhlheim in
Thuringia, Jan. 27, 1080, in a decisive battle, which Rudolf
regarded as a divine decision, and which inclined the pope
in his favor.
After long hesitation, Gregory, in a Synod of Rome, March
7, 1080, ventured upon the most extraordinary act even for a
man in the highest position. Invoking the aid of St. Peter
and St. Paul, he fulminated a second and severer ban against
Henry and all his adherents, deprived him again of his king-
doms of Germany and Italy, forbade all the faithful to obey
him, and bestowed the crown of Germany (not of Italy)
on Rudolf. The address was at once a prayer, a narrative,
and a judgment, and combined cool reflection with religious
fervor. It rests on the conviction that the pope, as the
representative of Peter and Paul, was clothed with supreme
authority over the world as well as the Church. 1
Gregory hazarded a prophecy, which was falsified by his-
1 See the extract in 11, p. 32, and Latin text of the address in Mansi,
Harduin, Jaff6, and Shailer Mathews, 51-54.
17. RENEWAL OF THE CONFLICT. 61
tory, that before the day of St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29),
Henry would either lose his life or his throne. After the
close of the synod, he sent to Rudolf (instead of the iron
crown of Charlemagne, which was in possession of Henry)
a diadem with the characteristic inscription :
" Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolpho." 1
A reconciliation was now impossible. Henry replied to
the papal ban by the election of an anti-pope. A council
of about thirty German and Italian bishops met at Brixen
in the Tyrol, June 26, 1080, and deposed Gregory on the
frivolous charges of ambition, avarice, simony, sorcery, and
the Berengarian heresy. Cardinal Hugo Candidus and
twenty-seven bishops (of Brixen, Bamberg, Coire, Freisingen,
Lausanne, etc.) signed the document. At the same time
they elected the excommunicated Archbishop Wibert of Ra-
venna pope, under the name of Clement III. He was a man
of talent, dignity, and unblemished character, but fell into
the hands of simonists and the enemies of reform. Henry
acknowledged him by the usual genuflexion, and promised to
visit Rome in the following spring, that he might receive
from him the imperial crown. Wibert returned to Ravenna
with the papal insignia and great pomp.
This was the beginning of a double civil war between rival
popes and rival kings, with all its horrors. Gregory counted
on the Saxons in Germany, Countess Matilda in Northern
Italy, and the Normans in Southern Italy.
Henry was defeated Oct. 15, 1080, on the banks of the
Elster, near Naumburg ; but Rudolf was mortally wounded
by Godfrey of Bouillon, the hero of Jerusalem, 2 and lost his
right hand by another enemy. He died the same evening,
exclaiming, as the story goes : " This is the hand with which
I swore fidelity to my lord, King Henry." But, according
1 The Rock gave the crown to Peter and Peter gives it to Rudolf.
2 This fact is reported by Albericus of Trois-Fontaines, but doubted by
Sybel (Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, p. 218) and Hefele (V. 150, note).
62 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
to another report, he said, when he heard of the victory of
his troops : "Now I suffer willingly what the Lord has
decreed for me." His body with the severed hand was de-
posited in the cathedral at Merseburg. 1
Rudolf's death turned his victory into a defeat. It was
regarded in that age as a judgment of God against him and
the anti-pope. His friends could not agree upon a successor
till the following summer, when they elected Count Hermann
of Luxemburg, who proved incompetent. In the spring of
1081 Henry crossed the Alps with a small army to depose
Gregory, whose absolution he had sought a few years before
as a penitent at Canossa. He was welcomed in Lombardy,
defeated the troops of Matilda, and appeared at the gates of
Rome before Pentecost, May 21. Gregory, surrounded by
danger, stood firm as a rock and refused every compromise.
At his last Lenten synod (end of February, 1081) he had
renewed his anathemas, and suspended those bishops who
disobeyed the summons. Nothing else is known of this
synod but sentences of punishment. In his letter of March
15, 1081, to Hermann, bishop of Metz, he justified his con-
duct towards Henry, and on April 8 he warned the Vene-
tians against any communication with him and his adherents.
" I am not afraid," he said, " of the threats of the wicked,
and would rather sacrifice my life than consent to evil."
Henry, not being permitted by the Romans to enter their
city, as he had hoped, and not being prepared for a siege,
spent the summer in Upper Italy, but returned to Rome in
Lent, 1082, and again with a larger force at Easter, 1083,
and conquered the city and the Church of St. Peter in June.
Gregory was intrenched in the Castle of St. Angelo, and
fulminated anew his anathema upon Henry and his followers
(June 24). Henry answered by causing Wibert to be en-
throned in St. Peter's (June 28), but soon left Rome with
Wibert (July 1), promising to return. He had probably
1 For a good description of the battle, see Giesebrecht, III. 516 sqq.
17. RENEWAL OF THE CONFLICT. 63
come to a secret understanding with the Roman nobility to
effect a peaceful compromise with Gregory; but the pope
was inexorable. In the spring of 1084 Henry returned and
called a synod, which deposed and excommunicated Gregory.
Wibert was consecrated on Palm Sunday as Pope Clement
III., in the Lateran, by two excommunicated bishops of Mo-
dena and Arezzo (instead of the bishops of Ostia, Albano,
and Porto). Henry and his wife, Bertha, received from
him the imperial crown in St. Peter's at Easter, March 3L
1084. He left Rome with Wibert (May 21), leaving the
defence of the city in the hands of the Romans. He never
returned.
In the meantime Gregory called to his aid the Norman
chief, Robert Guiscard, or Wiscard. This bold adventurer
approached from the south with a motley force of Normans,
Lombards, Apulians, and Saracens, amounting to thirty thou-
sand foot and six thousand horse, arrived in Rome, May 27,
1084, liberated the pope, and entered with him the Lateran.
He now began such a pillage and slaughter as even the bar-
barians had not committed. Half the city was reduced to
ruins ; many churches were demolished, others turned into
forts ; women and maidens, even nuns, were outraged, and
several thousand citizens sold into slavery. The survivors
cursed the pope and his deliverer. In the words of a con-
temporary, the cruelty of the Normans gained more hearts
for the emperor than a hundred thousand pieces of gold.
Rome was a ghost of her former self. When Hildebert of
Tours visited her more than ten years later, he saw only
ruins of her greatness. 1 This was, indeed, a fearful judg-
ment, but very different from the one which Gregory a few
years before had invoked upon Henry.
Many confused reports were circulated about the fate of
Gregory VII. His faithful friend, the Countess of Tuscany,
1 Hildebert's poem, lamenting the ruins of Borne, is found in Migne, 171,
1441 sq.
64 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
assembled troops, sent emissaries in all directions, and
stirred up distrust and hatred against Henry in Germany.
The following letter remains as evidence of her zeal for
Gregory:
"Matilda, such as she is hy the grace of God, if she be anything, to all
the faithful residing in the Teutonic kingdom, greeting.
" We would have you know that Henry, the false king, has stolen the
seal of the Lord Pope Gregory. Wherefore, if ye are told anything contrary
to the words of our envoys, hold it false, and believe not Henry's lies. Fur-
ther, he has carried away with him the Bishop of Porto, because that man
was once familiar with the Lord Pope. If by his help he should attempt any-
thing with you or against you, be sure this bishop is a false witness, and give
no credit to those who shall tell you to the contrary. Know that the Lord
Pope has already conquered Sutri and Nepi ; Barabbas the robber, that is
to say, Henry's pope, has fled like himself. Farewell. Beware of the
snares of Henry."
18. Death of Gregory VII.
Gregory was again in possession of the Lateran, but he
left the scene of melancholy desolation, accompanied by
Guiscard and a few cardinals and Roman nobles. He went
first to Monte Cassino and then to Salerno. The descent
from Canossa to Salerno was truly a via dolorosa. But the
old pope, broken in body, was unbroken in spirit.
He renewed the ban against Henry and the anti-pope at
the close of 1084, and sent a letter to the faithful in Ger-
many, stating that the words of the Psalmist, Quare fremue-
runt gentes (Ps. 2 : 1, 2), were fulfilled, that the kings of the
earth have rebelled against Christ and his apostle Peter to
destroy the Christian religion, but could not seduce those
who trusted in God. He called upon them to come to the
rescue of the Church if they wished to gain the remission
of sins and eternal salvation. This is his last written
document.
His mind remained clear and firm to the end. He recom-
mended Cardinal Desiderius of Monte Cassino (Victor III.)
as his successor, and next to him Otto, bishop of Ostia
(Urban II.). He absolved all his enemies, except Henry
18. DEATH OF GREGORY VII. 65
and Wibert, "the usurper of the apostolic see." 1 He died,
May 25, 1085, with the words which best express the mean-
ing of his public life and character: " I have loved righteous-
ness and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile." 2 " Nay,"
said one of the bishops, " in exile thou canst not die, who, as
the vicar of Christ and his Apostles, hast received all the
nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession" (Ps. 2 : 8).
Robert Guiscard, his protector, died a few weeks after-
wards (July 17, 1085).
The body of Gregory, clad in the pontifical vestments, was
buried in the church of St. Matthew at Salerno, which he
had consecrated shortly before. A plain stone marked his
grave till John of Procida although a zealous Ghibelline
erected a sumptuous chapel over it. 3 His name was in-
serted in the Calendar on the 25th of May, 1584, by Greg-
ory XIII., without a formal canonization; Paul V. ordered
a festival, in 1609, for the new saint; and Benedict XIII., in
1728, ordered its general observance. The emperor of Ger-
many, the king of France, and other sovereigns opposed the
celebration ; but if ever a pope deserved canonization for
1 u p r(e ter Henricum rege'm dictum omnes absolve et benedico, quicumque
me hanc habere specialem potestatem in vocem apostolorum Petri et Pauli
credunt indubitanter." Paulus Bernriedensis, Vita Greg., c. 12 ; Baronius,
Ann. XVII. 566.
2 " Dilexi justitiam et odi iniquitatem ; propterea morior in exilio."
The first two sentences are from Ps. 45 : 8 ; the last is put instead of "prop-
terea unxit te Dews." His enemies spread the false report that he repented
of the controversy which he had excited. Mon. Germ. Script., VIII. 470 ;
Baxmann, II. 424 sqq.
3 His monument, erected in 1578 in the cathedral of Salerno, bears the
inscription : " Gregorius VII. Soanensis, P. O.M., Ecdesice libertatis vindex
acerrimus, assertor constantissimus,qui dum Romani Pontificis auctoritatem
adversus Henrici perfidiam strenue tueretur, Salernce sancte decubuit. Anno
Domini 1085, oct. Cal. Jim." Hefele, V. 184 ; Gregorovius, Die Grab-
mdler der Pdpste, p. 49 ; Giesebrecht, III. 578 . Rome, which has so many
papal monuments, has none for Gregory VII., except an inscription on a
stone in S. Prudentiana, where he is called " Vir benedictus, moribus eccle-
siam renovavit." See Gregorovius, IV. 246.
F
66 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
devotion to the papal theocracy, it was Hildebrand. The
eighth centenary of his death was celebrated in the Roman
Church, May 25, 1885.
Gregory was, in his own time, and has been since, the sub-
ject both of the highest praise and of the severest censure.
Modern historians agree in giving him credit for the honesty
and courage of his convictions, and concede the purity and
loftiness of his motives and aims. He is the typical repre-
sentative of papal absolutism in the Middle Ages in conflict
with imperial absolutism. He combined personal integrity,
consummate statesmanship, and monastic contempt of the
world. He lived and moved in the idea of the Old Testa-
ment theocracy, and had no conception of the free spirit of
the gospel. He was a man of blood and iron, an austere
monk, inaccessible to feelings of tenderness, when acting in
his official capacity as the head of the Roman hierarchy ; yet
he showed singular liberality in his treatment of Berengar,
and protested against the use of torture. His piety was
absorbed in devotion to the hierarchy, to St. Peter, and to
the Virgin Mary. He was unscrupulous in the choice of
means for his end, and approved of civil war for the triumph
of the Roman Church.
The lofty principles he espoused he was willing to stake
his life upon. No pope has ever used the term " righteous-
ness " more frequently than he used it. No pope has ever
employed the figure of warfare to describe the conflict he
was engaged in more frequently than he employed it. 1 No
man was ever more convinced of the soundness of his cause.
He found his authority in the Scriptures and freely used
them to convince others, quoting certain passages again and
again, such as 1 Sam. 15 : 23, which is found quoted in his
writings nineteen times. 2 He found in Matt. 16 : 18 the
1 Hauck, III. 754 sqq.
2 In a single letter to Hermann of Metz, Reg., IV. 2, Gregory quotes at
least nine passages of Scripture.
18. DEATH OF GREGORY VII. 67
certain warrant for the papal supremacy and excepted no
person from the jurisdiction of Peter's successors. 1 As an
advocate of papal absolutism and as a moral reformer he has
left an abiding impress upon the thought and the practice
of Roman Christendom. Even where we are farthest from
sharing his views, we may admire the man of fearless courage
and moral conviction.
His spirit still moves in the curia, which adheres to the
theocratic theory, without the ability of carrying it into
practice. The papal Syllabus of 1864 denies that "the
Roman pontiffs have exceeded the limits of their power"
( V. 23), and asserts the superiority of the Church over
the State "in litigated questions of jurisdiction" ( VI. 54).
The politico-ecclesiastical encyclicals of Leo XIII. (Immor-
tale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885, and Libertas prcestantissimum naturae
donum, June 20, 1888) reasserted substantially, though mod-
erately and cautiously, the Gregorian theory of Church and
State.
Ranke, in his last years, wrote of Gregory : 2 " His hie-
rarchical system rests upon the endeavor to make the cler-
gical order the basis of all human existence. This makes
intelligible its two characteristic and fundamental principles,
the command of celibacy and the prohibition of lay investi-
ture. By the first it was intended to build up out of the
lower clergy a body isolated from all the personal and fam-
ily relationships of human society. By the second it was
intended to insure the higher clergy against all interference
from the civil power. The great hierarch thought out well
the platform on which he placed himself. He met a demand
of the age to see in the priest, as it were, a being belonging
to a higher order. All that he says betrays dignity, force,
1 Ubi Deus Petro principaliter cledit potestatem ligandi et solvendi in terra
et in ccelo, nullum excepit, nihil ab ejus potestate subtraxit. Reg., IV. 2 ;
Migne, 148, 456.
8 Weltgesch. VII. 34 sqq.
68 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1073-1085.
and logical connection. . . . His activity, which left noth-
ing untouched, was of a very human sort, while at the same
time it embraced religious ideals. The hierarchical princi-
ple constituted his real life."
Gregorovius, who carries on a sustained comparison between
Gregory and Napoleon, praises Gregory's genius and moral
vigor. He says : l " Gregory was the heir of the ancient
aims of the papacy. But his unexampled genius as ruler
and statesman is his own, and no one either in ancient Rome
or in modern times has ever reached to his revolutionary
daring. . . . His dying words reveal the fundamental basis
of his character, which was great and manly. To this grand
spirit, a character almost without an equal, belongs a place
among the rulers of the earth, men who have moved the
world by a violent yet salutary influence. The religious
element, however, raises him to a far higher sphere than that
to which secular monarchs belong. Beside Gregory, Napo-
leon sinks to an utter poverty of ideas."
Let us hope that Gregory felt in his heart some of that
Christian love and meekness whose commendation closes one
of his letters to Hermann, archbishop of Metz, 2 the most
drastic expression of papal absolutism he ever made. He
1 Hist, of City of Home, IV. 256. Of Canossa this author had said,
IV. 207 : "The weaponless victory of the monk Gregory has more claim on
the admiration of the world than all the victories of an Alexander, a Caesar,
and a Napoleon." Like other Protestant German historians he has no sym-
pathy with Gregory's papal scheme of papal absolutism, but most of the
German Church historians, as Mirbt and Hauck, are inclined to magnify the
courage and manly vigor of Henry, as well as the justice of his cause, and to
underestimate or question the moral quality of Gregory in his conflict with
the emperor, and the immediate results of the event at Canossa. Hauck,
III. 805, omits a detailed description of that remarkable scene with the
remark that it was so well known to Germans as not to need retelling. He
pronounces the estimate usually put upon Gregory's intellectual gifts as too
high, and declares that the title " Great " is properly associated with the
name of the first Gregory and not with the seventh pope of that name.
Hildebrand had convictions enough, but lacked in native force, p. 832 sq.
2 Dated March 15, 1081, Reg., VIII. 21 ; Mirbt, Quellen, 105-112; Migne,
148, 594-604.
18. DEATH OF GKEGOKY VII. 09
wrote : " If the virtue of love be neglected, no matter what
good any one may do, he will wholly lack the fruit of salva-
tion. To do these things in humility and to love God and
our neighbor as we ought, this presupposes the mercy of him
who said, Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.
Whosoever humbly follows him shall pass from the kingdom
of submission which passes away, to the kingdom of true
liberty which abides forever."
CHAPTER III.
THE PAPACY FROM THE DEATH OF GREGORY VII. TO THE
CONCORDAT OF WORMS. A.D. 1085-1122.
19. Victor III. and Urban II. 1086-1099.
Compare the chapter on the Crusades.
AT the death of Gregory, his imperial enemy was victorious
in Germany, and had recovered part of Saxony; Lombardy
remained loyal to the empire ; Matilda was prostrated by
grief and sickness ; the anti-pope Wibert (Clement III.,
1080-1100) continued to occupy a part of Rome (the Lat-
eran palace and the castle of St. Angelo) ; Roger, the new
duke of the Normans, spent his whole force in securing for
himself the sole rule over Calabria and Apulia against his
brother Bohemund. There was a papal interregnum of
twelve months.
At last the excellent Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino,
who had raised that convent to the height of its prosperity,
was elected to succeed his friend Gregory, May 24, 1086.
He accepted after long delay, but ruled only eighteen months
as Victor III. He loved monastic solitude, and died Sept. 16,
1087.
He was followed by Otto (Odo), cardinal-bishop of Ostia,
a Frenchman, formerly prior of Cluny, and one of the in-
timate counsellors of Hildebrand. He assumed the name
Urban II., and ruled from March 12, 1088, to July 29, 1099.
He followed in the steps of Gregory, but with more caution
and adaptation to circumstances. He spent his pontificate
mostly outside of Rome, but with increasing moral influ-
ence. He identified himself with the rising enthusiasm for
70
19. VICTOR III. AND URBAN II. 71
the holy war of the Cross against the Crescent. This was
an immense gain for the papacy, which reaped all the credit
and benefit of that extraordinary movement.
He took a noble stand in favor of the sanctity of marriage
against the licentious King Philip I. of France, who cast
away his legitimate wife, Bertha, 1092, and held adulter-
ous intercourse with Bertrada of Montfort, the runaway wife
of the rude Count Fulco of Anjou. This public scandal
led to several synods. The king was excommunicated by
a synod at Autun in Burgundy, Oct. 16, 1094, and by the
Synod of Clermont in 1095. He afterwards dismissed Ber-
trada, and was absolved by the pope.
Urban continued the war with Henry IV. without scruple
as to the means. He encouraged the rebellion of his eldest
son, Conrad, a weak and amiable man, who fled for protec-
tion to the Countess Matilda, was crowned king of Italy at
Monza, and paid the pope the homage of holding his stirrup
(the officium stratoris) at Cremona (1095). Urban, who had
been consecrated pope outside of Rome, was able, 1088, with
the aid of the Normans, to enter the city and possess himself
of all its parts except the castle of St. Angelo, which remained
in the hands of the followers of Wibert. Wibert had been
in possession of St. Peter's, which he held as a fortress
against Victor III. The streets of the papal city resounded
with the war-cries of the two papal armies, while pope and
anti-pope anathematized one another. Urban died at Flor-
ence in 1101.
The pope arranged an unnatural matrimonial alliance
between the widowed countess and the young Guelph of
Bavaria, whose father was the most powerful of the empe-
ror's enemies in Germany. It was a purely political match,
which made neither party happy, and ended in a divorce
(1095). But it gave the papal party a political organiza-
tion, and opened the long-continued war between the Guelphs
and the Ghibellines, which distracted every city in Italy, and
72 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
is said to have caused seventy-two hundred revolutions and
more than seven hundred atrocious murders in that country. 1
Every Italian was born to an inheritance of hatred and re-
venge, and could not help sharing in the conflict of factions
headed by petty tyrants. The Guelphs defended the pope
against the emperor, and also the democracy against the
aristocracy in the city government. They were strong in
pulling down, but were unable to create a new State. The
Ghibellines maintained the divine origin and independent
authority of the State in all things temporal against the
encroachments of the papacy. The party strife continued
in Italy long after the German emperor had lost his power.
Dante was at first a Guelph, but in mature life joined the
Ghibellines and became the most formidable opponent of
Pope Boniface VIII.
Urban was able to hold a synod at Piacenza in Lombardy,
where Henry IV. had his chief support, during Lent, 1095.
It was attended by four thousand priests and monks and over
thirty thousand laymen, and the meeting had to be held in
the open field. The pope permitted Praxedis (Adelheid),
the second wife of Henry IV., to recite the filthy details of
acts of impurity to which she had been subjected by her
husband, endorsed her shameless story, absolved her from
all uncleanness, and remitted every penitential observance,
" because she had not blushed to make a public and volun-
tary confession of her involuntary transgression." 2 After
1 Guelfi, Welfen, from Welf, Wolf, a family name of the dukes of Bavaria.
Ghibellini, Ghibellinen, from Waiblingen, the patrimonial castle of Conrad of
Hohenstaufen in Swabia. Comp. Ferrari, Histoire des revolutions d? Italic, ou
Guelfes et Ghibellins, Paris, 1858, 4 vols. From the Guelphs descended the
house of Brunswick and Hanover, and the royal family of England since
George L, 1714.
2 Praxedis or Eupraxia, or (as the Germans called her) Adelheid was a
Russian princess, who married Henry in 1089, two years after Bertha's death.
She had preferred the same horrible charges before a synod at Constance in
1094. See Pertz, Tom. VII. 468, XVII. 14 ; Hefele-Knopfler, V. 211 sq. and
216 ; Greenwood, IV. 561.
20. PASCAL II. AND HENRY V. 73
thus sealing the damnation of Henry, the synod renewed the
laws against simony and Nicolaitism. Wibert, the anti-pope,
was put under anathema, and his consecrations were declared
invalid. The Catholic faith in the true and essential pres-
ence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist was
asserted against the heresy of Berengar.
More important was the Synod of Clermont in France,
Nov. 18-28, 1095, which inaugurated the first crusade. Here
Urban preached the most effective sermon on record, and
reached the height of his influence.
He passed in triumphal procession, surrounded by princes
and prelates, through France and Italy. He exhorted the
people everywhere to repent of their sins and to prove the
sincerity of their conversion by killing as many enemies of
the cross as they could reach with their swords. When he
reached Rome the anti-pope had been driven away by the
Crusaders. He was enabled to celebrate the Christmas festi-
val of 1096 with unusual magnificence, and held two synods
in the Lateran, January, 1097, and April, 1099. He died,
July 29, 1099, a fortnight after the capture of Jerusalem
(July 15) by the Crusaders.
20. Pascal II. and Henry V. 1099-1118.
The letters of Paschalis II. in MIGNE, 163. W. SCHUM : Die Politik Papst
Paschalis II. gegen Kaiser Heinrich V. Erfurt, 1877. G. PEISER :
Der deutsche Investiturstreit unter Heinrich V. bis 1111. Berlin, 1883.
GREGOROVIUS IV., HAUCK III., PFLUGK-HARTTUNG : Die Bullen der
Pdpste. Gotha, 1901, pp. 234-263. MIRBT, art. Paschalis II. in Herzog,
XIV. 717-725, and the literature there given.
Pascal II., a monk of Cluny and disciple of Hildebrand,
but less firm and consistent, was elected in July, 1099, and
reigned till 1118. Clement III., the anti-pope, died in Sep-
tember, 1100, weary of the world, and left a reputation of
integrity, gentleness, and dignity. The imperialist clergy of
Rome elected another anti-pope, Sylvester IV., who soon
disappeared noiselessly from the stage.
74 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
Pascal gained a complete victory over Henry IV. by sup-
porting the wicked rebellion of his second son, Henry V., the
last of the Salic or Franconian line of emperors, 1104-1125.
The unfortunate father died under the anathema in misery
at Liege (Luttich), Aug. 7, 1106. The people of the city
which had remained faithful to him, lamented his death; but
the papal agents commanded the bishop of Liege to remove
his body from consecrated ground to an island in the Maas.
Henry V. had not lost all feeling for his father, and complied
with his dying request for burial in the imperial sepulchre
at Spires. The clergy and the citizens accompanied the
funeral procession to the cathedral of St. Mary, which the
departed sovereign had himself built and richly endowed.
He was buried with all honors. But when Bishop Gebhard,
one of his fiercest persecutors, who was absent at the time,
heard of it, he caused the body to be forthwith exhumed and
removed, and interdicted all services in the church till it
should be purified of all pollution. The people, however,
could not be deterred from frequent visits to the unconse-
crated chapel where the dishonored remains of their monarch
and patron were deposited. At last the pope dissolved the
ban, on the assurance of Henry V. that his father had pro-
fessed sincere repentance, and his body was again deposited
in the cathedral, Aug. 7, 1111. By his moral defects and
his humiliation at Canossa, Henry IV. had promoted the
power of the papal hierarchy, and yet, by his continued oppo-
sition after that act, he had prevented its complete triumph.
Soon after his death an anonymous writer gave eloquent and
touching expression to his grief over the imperial lord whom
he calls his hope and comfort, the pride of Rome, the orna-
ment of the empire, the lamp of the world, a benefactor of
widows and orphans, and a father of the poor. 1
1 The tract is more eloquent than accurate. It is ascribed by Goldast,
Floto, and Gieseler to Bishop Otbert of Luttich (Liege) ; by Dr. Jaffe", to an
unknown writer in Mainz (see the preface to his German translation, Das
20. PASCAL II. AND HENRY V. 75
Pascal had to suffer for his unscrupulous policy. When
Henry V. came into full possession of his power, he demanded
the right of investiture over all the churches of the empire,
and coronation at Rome. The pope was imprisoned and so
hard pressed by Henry, that he resolved to buy the spiritual
freedom of the Church by a sacrifice of its temporal posses-
sions (except the patrimony of Peter). A compact to this
effect between him and the emperor was signed provisionally,
April, 1111. Henry was crowned emperor of the Romans in
St. Peter's. But after his return to Germany, a Lateran
synod rejected the compact, March, 1112. The pope repre-
sented to the synod that, while in the custody of the em-
peror, with many bishops and cardinals, he had conceded to
him the right of investiture to avoid greater evils, and had
promised him immunity from excommunication. He con-
fessed that the concession was wrong, and left it with the
synod to improve the situation. He made in the sixth ses-
sion (March 23) a solemn profession of the Catholic faith in
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, the Canons of
the Apostles, the four (Ecumenical Synods of Nicsea, Con-
stantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, and the decrees of Greg-
ory VII. and Urban II. against lay-investiture and all other
crimes which they had condemned. Then the synod, while
the pope kept silent, resolved to annul the treaty which he
had been forced to make with King Henry. All exclaimed,
"Amen, Amen, fiat, fiat." Twelve archbishops, a hundred
and fourteen bishops, fifteen cardinal-priests, and eight car-
dinal-deacons signed the decree.
The zealous Gregorians wished to go further and to de-
clare lay-investiture a heresy (which would imply that Pope
Pascal was a heretic). A French Synod of Vienne, Sept. 16,
Leben Kaiser Heinrich des Vierten, Berlin, 1858) ; by Druffel and Giesebrecht,
to Bishop Erlung of Wiirzburg, who was chancellor of the emperor from 1103
to 1105. For a good characterization of Henry IV. see Giesebrecht, III. 764-
768, and on this biography, pp. 1050 sq.
76 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
1112, passed three decrees: 1) Investiture by a layman is a
heresy; 2) the enforced compact of Pascal with Henry is
null and void ; 3) King Henry, who came to Rome under the
pretext of peace, and betrayed the pope with a Judas-kiss, is
cut off from holy Church until he gives complete satisfaction.
The decisions were submitted to the pope, who approved
them, October 20 of the same year, to avert a schism. Other
provincial synods of France, held by papal legates, launched
anathemas against the "tyrant of Germany."
But Henry defied the pope, who had pledged himself never
to excommunicate him on account of investiture. After the
death of Countess Matilda, July 24, 1115, he hastened for a
third time to Italy, and violently seized the rich possessions
which she had bequeathed to the chair of St. Peter. Pascal
fled to Benevento, and called the Normans to his aid, as
Gregory VII. had done. Henry celebrated the Easter festi-
val of 1117 in Rome with great pomp, caused the empress to
be crowned, showed himself to the people in his imperial
purple, and amused them with shows and processions; but in
the summer he returned to Germany, after fruitless negotia-
tions with the pope. He lived to conclude the Concordat
of Worms. He was an energetic, but hard, despotic, and
unpopular ruler.
Pascal died, Jan. 21, 1118, in the castle of St. Angelo, and
was buried in the church of St. John in Lateran. He barely
escaped the charge of heresy and schism. He privately con-
demned, and yet officially supported, lay-investiture, and
strove to satisfy both his own conscience and his official duty
to the papacy. The extreme party charged him with the sin
of Peter, and exhorted him to repent; milder judges, like Ivo
of Chartres and Hildebert of Le Mans, while defending the
Hildebrandian principle of the freedom of the Church, ex-
cused him on the ground that he had yielded for a moment
in the hope of better times and from the praiseworthy desire
to save the imprisoned cardinals and to avoid bloodshed ; and
21. THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS. 77
they referred to the example of Paul, who circumcised Tim-
othy, and complied with the wish of James in Jerusalem to
please the Jewish Christians.
21. The Concordat of Worms. 1122.
EKKEHARDUS URAUGIENSIS : Chronica (best ed. by Waiz in Mon. Germ. Script.,
VI. 260). UL. ROBERT: Etude swr les actes du pape Calixte II. Paris,
1874. E. BERNHEIM : Zur Geschichte des Wormser Concordats. Gottin-
gen, 1878. M. MAURER: Papst Calixt II. Munchen, 1886. GIESE-
BRECHT, III. 931-959. RANKE, VIII. 111-126. HEFELE-KNOPFLER,
V. 311-384; Bullaire et histoire de Calixte II. Paris, 1891. D.
SCHAFER : Zur Beurtheilung des Wormser Konkordats. Berlin, 1905.
The Gregorian party elected Gelasius a cardinal-deacon, far
advanced in age. His short reign of a year and four days
was a series of pitiable misfortunes. He had scarcely been
elected when he was grossly insulted by a mob led by Cen-
cius Frangipani and cast into a dungeon. Freed by the
fickle Romans, he was thrown into a panic by the sudden ap-
pearance of Henry V. at the gates, and fled the city, attempt-
ing to escape by sea. The Normans came to his rescue and
he was led back to Rome, where he found St. Peter's in the
hands of the anti-pope. A wild riot again forced him to flee
and when he was found he was sitting in a field near St.
Paul's, with no companions but some women as his comfort-
ers. He then escaped to Pisa and by way of Genoa to France,
where he died at Cluny, 1119. The imperialist party had
elected an anti-pope, Gregory VIII., who was consecrated at
Rome in the presence of Henry V., and ruled till 1121, but
was taken captive by the Normans, mounted on a camel,
paraded before Calixtus amid the insults and mockeries of
the Roman mob, covered with dust and filth, and consigned
to a dungeon. He died in an obscure monastery, in 1125,
"still persevering in his rebellion." Such was the state of
society in Rome.
Calixtus II., the successor of Gelasius, 1119-1124, was
elected at Cluny and consecrated at Vienne. He began his
78 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
rule by renewing the sentence of excommunication against
Henry; and in him the emperor found his match. After hold-
ing the Synod of Rheims, which ratified the prohibition of lay-
investiture, he reached Rome, 1120. Both parties, emperor
and pope, were weary of the long struggle of fifty years,
which had, like the Thirty Years' War five centuries later,
kept Central Europe in a state of turmoil and war. At the
Diet of Wiirzburg, 1121, the men of peace were in the ma-
jority and demanded a cessation of the conflict and the call-
ing of a council.
Calixtus found it best to comply, however reluctantly, with
the resolution of the German Diet, and instructed his legates
to convoke a general council of all the bishops of France and
Germany at Mainz for the purpose of restoring concord
between the holy see and the empire. The assembly ad-
journed from Mainz to Worms, the city which became after-
wards so famous for the protest of Luther. An immense
multitude crowded to the place to witness the restoration of
peace. The sessions lasted more than a week, and closed
with a solemn mass and the Te Deum by the cardinal-bishop
of Ostia, who gave the kiss of peace to the emperor.
The Concordat of Worms was signed, Sept. 23, 1122. It
was a compromise between the contending parties. It is the
first of the many concordats which the popes have since that
time concluded with various sovereigns and governments,
and in which they usually make some concession to the civil
power. If they cannot carry out their principle, they agree
to a modus vivendi.
The pope gained the chief point, namely, the right of in-
vestiture by delivery of the ring and crosier (the symbols
of the spiritual power) in all the churches of the empire, and
also the restoration of the properties and temporalities of the
blessed Peter which had passed out of the possession of the
holy see during the late civil wars.
On the other hand, the pope granted to the emperor that
21. THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS. 79
the elections to all bishoprics and abbeys of the empire should
be made in the emperor's presence, without simony or any kind
of corruption; that in cases of dispute the emperor should be
at liberty to decide in favor of the person who, in his judg-
ment, had the best claim; and that the candidate thus elected
should receive from the emperor the temporalities of his see
or abbey by the delivery of a rod or sceptre (the symbol of
the temporal power), but without bargain or valuable con-
sideration of any kind, and ever after render unto the sover-
eign all such duties and services as by law he was bound to
render. But the temporalities belonging to the Roman see
were exempt from these stipulations.
There are some ambiguities and uncertainties in this treaty
which opened the way for future contention. The emperor
surrenders the right of investiture (with ring and crosier),
and yet takes it back again in a milder form (with the scep-
tre). The question whether consecration is to precede
or to follow investiture was left undecided, except outside of
Germany, i.e. in Italy and Burgundy, where investiture
with the regalia by the sceptre was to take place within six
months after the consecration. Nothing is said about heirs
and successors. Hence the concordat might be understood
simply as a treaty between Calixtus and Henry, a temporary
expedient, an armistice after half a century of discord be-
tween Church and State. After their deaths both the papal
tiara and the imperial crown became again apples of discord.
The Concordat of Worms was confirmed by the Ninth
(Ecumenical Synod (according to the Roman counting), or
First (Ecumenical Council of the West, held in the Lateran
from March 18 to April 6, 1123. It is also called the First
Lateran Council. Over three hundred bishops and abbots
were present, or, according to other reports, five hundred or
even nine hundred and ninety-seven. The documents of
Worms were read, approved by all, and deposited in the ar-
chives of the Roman Church.
80 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1086-1122.
NOTES.
Thetextof the Concordatum WormatienseorPactum CtaWx^num is preserved
in the Vatican, and in the Chronicle of Ekkehard (abbot of Aura, near Kissin-
gen, from 1108 to 1125). It has been repeatedly published by Baronius,
Annales; Goldast, Constitutiones Imperiales ; Leibnitz, Corpus juris diplo-
maticum ; in Gieseler's Church History ; in German translation, by Hefele-
Knopfler, Conciliengesch. V. 373 ; and also by Pertz, in the Monumenta Ger-
manice Legum, II. 75 sq. (who gives the various readings from seven MSS. of
Ekkehard's Chronica), and Mirbt, Quellen, 115, 116. It is as follows :
"In nomine sanctce et individual Trinitatis.
' ' Ego Heinricus Dei gratia Romanorum Imperator Augustus pro amore Dei
et s. Romanes Ecclesice et domini P. Calixti, et pro remedio animce mece,
dimitto Deo et ss. ejus Apostolis Petro et Paulo, sanctceque catholicce Ecclesice
omnem investituram per annulum et baculum, et concedo, in omnibus Eccle-
siis canonicam fieri electionem et liberam consecrationem. Possessiones et
regalia b. Petri, quce a principio hujus discordice usque ad hodiernam diem,
sive patris mei tempore, sive etiam meo, ablata sunt, quce habeo, s. Romance
Ecclesice restituo, quce autem non habeo, ut, restituantur, fideliter juvabo.
Possessiones etiam omnium Ecclesiarum aliarum, et Principum, et aliorum
tarn clericorum quam laicorum, quce in guerra ista amissce sunt, consilio
Principum, veljustitia, quas habeo, reddam, quas non habeo, ut reddantur,
fideliter juvabo. Et do veram pacem domino Papce Calixto, sanctceque Roma-
nce Ecclesice, et omnibus, qui inparte ipsiussunt velfuerunt. Et in quibus
s. Romana Ecclesia mihi auxilium postulaverit , fideliterjuvabo ; etde quibus
mihifecerit querimoniam, debitam sibi faciam justitiam.
" Ego Calixtus Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, tibi dilecto filio Heinrico,
Dei gratia Romanorum Imperatori Augusto, concedo, electiones Episcoporum
et Abbatum Teutonici regni, qui ad regnum pertinent, in prcesentia tua fieri
absque simonia et aliqua violentia ; ut si qua inter paries discordia emerserit,
Metropolitans et Comprovincialum consilio veljudicio, saniori parti assensum
et auxilium prcebeas. Electus autem regalia per sceptrum a te recipiat,
et quce ex his jure tibi debet, faciat. Ex aliis vero partibus Imperil consecra-
tus infra sex menses regalia per sceptrum a te recipiat, et quce ex his jure tibi
debetj faciat, exceptis omnibus, quce ad Romanam Ecclesiam pertinere
noscuntur. De quibus vero querimoniam mihifeceris, secundum offlcii mei
debitum auxilium tibi prcestabo. Do tibi veram pacem et omnibus, qui in
parte tua sunt, autfuerunt tempore hujus discordice. Data anno dominicce
Incarnationis M CXXII. IX Kal. Octobr."
Then follow the signatures.
22. The Conflict of the Hierarchy in England. William
the Conqueror and Lanfranc.
The DOMESDAY or DOOMESDAY BOOK (Liber jitdicii ; Book of judgment ; Liber
de Wintonia, because deposited in the cathedral at Winchester, now in the
Charter House at Westminster, published in facsimile, 1783 and 1861).
22. CONFLICT OF THE HIERARCHY IN ENGLAND. 81
It was prepared between 1080 and 1086 by the "justiciaries" of William
the Conqueror for the purpose of ascertaining the taxable wealth and
military strength of the conquered country and securing a full and fair
assessment. It contains, among other things, a list of the bishops,
churches, religious houses, great men, etc. See Freeman's Norman Con-
quest, V. 1-52 and 733-740. He says (Preface, viii.) : " The stores of
knowledge in Domesday are boundless " (for secular history, rather than
church history). The Gesta Wilhelmi by WILLIAM OF POITIERS, a chap-
lain and violent partisan of the Conqueror. Also the chronicles of
WILLIAM OF JUMIEGES, ORDEKICUS VITALIS, in Migne, 188, Eng. Trans.
4 vols. Bohn's Libr.
LANFRANC (thirty-fourth archbishop of Canterbury, 1005-1089) : Vita and
(55) Epistolce, in his Opera, edited by D'Achery (Paris, 1648), Giles
(Oxford, 1844, in 2 vols.), and Migne, 150. H. BOEHMER, Die Fal-
schungen Lanfranks von Cant. Leipzig, 1902.
* EADMER (monk of Canterbury, pupil and biographer of Anselm) : Vita
Sancti Anselmi, and Historia Novorum, both in Anselm's Opera (ed.
Migne, 158, 159, and in Rolls Series, 1884). The biographies of Anselm
by FRANK (Tubingen, 1842), HASSE (Leipzig, 1843, vol. I. 235-455),
REMUSAT (Paris, 1853; German translation by Wurzbach, 1854), DEAN
CHURCH (London, 1875), RULE (London, 1883), HOOK (in 2d vol.
of Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, London, 1861-1874), RIGG,
1896, WELCH, 1901.
* WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY (b. a. 1096, d. 1143, son of a Norman father
and Saxon mother, monk and librarian in the abbey of Malmesbury) :
De Gestis Begum Anglorum (a history of England from the Anglo-
Saxon Conquest to the end of the reign of Henry I., 1129) ; Histories
Novellce (a continuation till 1151) ; De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum
(history of the English Church till 1123). Edited by Savile, in Eerum
Anglicarum Scriptores, London, 1596 ; best ed. in Rolls Series, English
translation by John Sharpe, edited by Giles, in Bohn's " Antiquarian
Library," London, 1847.
The Works of HENRY OF HUNTINGDON, WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH, GERVAISE
OF CANTERBURY, RALPH OF COGGESHALL, RICHARD OF HOVEDEN,
MATTHEW PARIS, etc., as ed. in the Serum Britannicarum medii cevl
scriptores, called the Rolls Series, London, 1858 sqq. These works ed.
by Stubbs, Luard, and other competent Eng. scholars are indispensable.
J. N. AUG. THIERRY (1795-1856) : Histoire de la conquete de VAngleterre
par les Normands, deses causes et de ses suites en Angleterre, enlfcosse,
et en Irlande et sur le continent. 5 e ed. entierement revue et augmentee.
Paris, 1839, 4 vols. The first edition was published, 1825, in 3 vols., a
6th ed. in 1843, etc. English translation by Hazlitt, 1847.
Enw. A. FREEMAN (Professor of History in Oxford) : History of the Nor-
man Conquest. Oxford, 1867-1876 (vols. II., III., IV., and V. See
Index, vol. VI.). And his Reign of William Rufus and the Accession
of Henry the First. Oxford, 1882, 2 vols. (see Index, sub Anselm).
An exhaustive treatment of that period by a master in historic research
and erudition, with model indexes.
G
82 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
BISHOP STDBBS furnishes authentic information in his Constitutional History
of England, 6th ed. 3 vols. 1897 ; Select Charters and Other Illustrations
of English Constitutional History to the Eeign of Edward I. (1870) ;
Memorials of St. Dunstan (1874).
H. GEE and W. J. HARDY: Documents illustrative of Eng. Ch. Hist.,
London, 1896.
W. R. W. STEPHENS: The Eng. Ch. 1066-1272. London, 1891.
Milman (bk. VIII. ch. VIII.) briefly touches upon this important chapter
of the Church history of England. Hardwick (Church History of the Middle
Ages) ignores it. Robertson notices the principal facts. Dean Hook gives
the Lives of Lanfranc and Anselm (II. 73-168 and 169-276).
The conflict between the pope and the emperor for suprem-
acy was repeated, on a smaller scale, in England, between the
archbishop of Canterbury and the king, and was settled
for a season in favor of the hierarchy, several years before the
Concordat of Worms. The struggle for the freedom of the
Church was indirectly also a struggle for the freedom of
the State and the people from the tyranny of the crown.
Priestcraft prevailed over kingcraft, then aristocracy over
absolute monarchy in the Magna Charta, and at last the peo-
ple over both.
The Anglo-Saxon kings and nobles enriched the Church
of England, their alma mater, by liberal grants of real estate
amounting to about one-third of the land, and thus con-
ferred upon it great political influence. The bishops ranked
with the nobles, and the archbishops with princes, next
to the king. The archbishop of Canterbury was usually
intrusted with the regency during the absence of the sover-
eign on the Continent.
But for this very reason the British sovereigns of the
different dynasties tried to keep the Church in a state of
dependence and subserviency, by the election of bishops and
the exercise of the right of investiture. They filled the
vacant bishoprics with their chaplains, so that the court
became a nursery of prelates, and they occasionally arro-
gated to themselves such titles as " Shepherd of Shep-
herds," and even "Vicar of Christ." In one word, they
22. CONFLICT OF THE HIERARCHY IN ENGLAND. 83
aspired to be popes of England long before Henry VIII.
blasphemously called himself " Supreme Head of the Church
of England."
Under the later kings of the Saxon line the Church had
degenerated, and was as much in need of reform as the
churches on the Continent. The ascetic reforms of Dunstan
took no deep root and soon passed away. Eadward the Con-
fessor (1042-1066) was a monastic saint, but a stranger and
shadow in England, with his heart in Normandy, the home
of his youth. The old Saxon literature was forgotten, and
the clergy was sunk in ignorance. 1 No ecclesiastical synod
broke the slumber. The priests were married or lived in
concubinage. Simony was freely exercised.
The Norman Conquest aroused England to new life and
activity. It marks the greatest change in English history
since the Anglo-Saxon Conquest. It left its impress upon
the language, literature, architecture, laws and institutions
of the country, without, however, breaking the continuity.
The Normans, though a foreign, were yet a kindred race,
of Teutonic stock, Romanized and Gallicanized in France.
From savage pirates they had been changed into semi-civil-
lized Christians, without losing their bravery and love of
adventure, which they showed in the crusades and the con-
quest of England. They engrafted the French language
and manners upon the Anglo-Saxon trunk, and superinduced
an aristocratic element on the democratic base. It took a
long time for the two nationalities and languages to melt
into one.
The amalgamation was an enrichment. The happy com-
bination of Saxon strength and endurance with Norman
enterprise and vivacity, in connection with the insular posi-
tion and the capacity for self-government fostered thereby,
1 It is said of the later Anglo-Saxon clergy that they were scarcely able to
stammer out the forms of divine service, and that any one who knew " gram-
mar " was regarded as a prodigy.
84 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
prepared the English race for the dominion of the seas and
the founding of successful colonies in all continents. 1
The Norman kings were as jealous of their rights and as
much opposed to papal superiority as the German emperors.
Their instincts and interests were csesaropapistic or Erastian.
But the Church kept them in check. The Hildebrandian
ideas of reform were advocated and carried out in part by
two of the most eminent scholars and monks of the age,
Lanfranc (1005-1089) and Anselm (1033-1109), who fol-
lowed each other in the see of Canterbury. They were both
of Italian birth, one from the Lombard city of Pa via, the
other from Aosta, and successively abbots and teachers of
the famous convent of Bee in the diocese of Rouen.
William I. of Normandy, surnamed "the Conqueror," the
natural son of " Robert the Devil " and the daughter of a
tanner, and the first king of the Norman dynasty (1066-
1087), enforced his pretension to the English throne under
the consecrated banner of Pope Alexander II. by the defeat
of Harold in the battle on the hill of Senlac, near Hastings,
Oct. 14, 1066. Five years afterwards he made Lanfranc
archbishop of Canterbury. He had formerly banished him
from Normandy for opposing his marriage with Matilda of
Flanders, as being within the forbidden degrees. He over-
took the abbot as he was leaving the convent on a lame
horse, and hurried him on. The abbot said, " Give me a
better horse, and I shall go faster." This cool request turned
the duke's wrath into laughter and good-will. He was rec-
onciled, and employed him to obtain the pope's sanction of the
marriage, and the removal of the interdict from his territories.
Lanfranc was a moderate Hildebrandian. He had been
the chief promoter of the doctrine of transubstantiation in
1 On the effects of the Norinan Conquest, see the fifth volume of Free-
man's great work. Comp. also Schaff's essay on the cosmopolitan character
and mission of the English language, in his Literature and Poetry, New York,
1890, pp. 1-62.
22. CONFLICT OP THE HIERARCHY IN ENGLAND. 85
the Berengarian controversy; while Hildebrand protected
Berengar as long as he could. 1 He wag zealous for clerical
celibacy, substituted monks for secular canons in cathedrals,
and prohibited, through the Council of Winchester in 1076,
the ordination of married priests, but allowed the rural
clergy to retain their wives. He did not fully sustain the
pope's claim to temporal authority, and disobeyed the fre-
quent summons to appear at Rome. He lived, upon the
whole, on good terms with the king, although he could not
effect anything against his will. He aided him in his attempt
to Normanize the English Church. He was intrusted with
the regency when the duke was absent on the Continent.
He favored the cause of learning, and rebuilt the cathedral
of Canterbury, which had burnt down.
William was a despot in Church and State, and rather
grew harder and more reckless of human suffering in his
later years. His will was the law of the land. Freeman
places him both "among the greatest of men" and "among
the worst of men." 2 His military genius and statesmanship
are undoubted ; but he was utterly unscrupulous in the
choice of means. He had a strong sense of religion and
reverence for the Church, and was liberal to her ministers ;
he did not, like his son, keep the benefices vacant and rob
her revenues ; he did not practise simony, and, so far, he fell
in .with the Hildebrandian reform. 3 But he firmly insisted
on the right of investiture. He declared that he would not
allow a single bishop's staff to pass out of his hands. He
held his own even against Hildebrand. He felt that he owed
his crown only to God and to his own sword. He was will-
1 On Lanfranc's connection with the Berengar controversy, see Schaff,
vol. IV. 656 and 567 sq.
2 Norman Conquest, II. 165.
8 Freeman, V. 169 : " He was one of the few princes of that age whose
hands were wholly clean from the guilt of simony. His ecclesiastical ap-
pointments for the most part do him honor ; the patron of Lanfranc and
Anselm can never be spoken of without respect."
86 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
ing to pay Peter's pence to the pope as alms, but not as
tribute, and refused to swear allegiance to Gregory VII.
He made full use of the right of a victor. He subjected
the estates of the Church to the same feudal obligations as
other lands. He plundered religious houses. He deposed
Archbishop Stigand and other Saxon bishops to make room
for Norman favorites, who did not even understand the lan-
guage of the people. These changes were not begun till
1070, when Stigand was tried before the papal legates who
had placed the crown on William's head. The main charges
were simony and that he had received the pall from the
usurping pope, Benedict X. William left only one English-
man, the simple-minded Wulfstan of Worcester, in possession
of his see. He gradually extended the same system to
abbacies and lower dignities. He allowed no synod to con-
vene and legislate without his previous permission and
subsequent confirmation of its decrees, no pope to be ac-
knowledged in England without his will, no papal letters to
be received and published without his consent. No ecclesi-
astic was to leave the kingdom without his permission, and
bishops were forbidden to excommunicate a noble for adul-
tery or any capital crime without the previous assent of the
king. In these ways the power of the clergy was limited,
and a check put upon the supremacy of Rome over the
English Church. Lanfranc seems to have fully sympathized
with these measures. For after the death of Alexander II.,
who had been his pupil at Bee, he seems to have treated the
popes, especially Gregory VII., coolly. Gregory wrote him
several letters threatening him with suspension and for
his absence from the synods which were convening in
Rome. 1
On the other hand, the law was passed in William's reign
remanding ecclesiastical suits to separate tribunals, 2 a law
1 Reg. Greg., VI. 30, IX. 20 ; Migne, 148, 621, 643.
2 Gee and Hardy, 57 sq.
23. WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM. 8T
which afterwards gave occasion for much contention. The
bishops' court henceforth used the canon law instead of the
common English law used in the shire courts. Another
important movement in William's reign, sanctioned by syn-
odal authority, 1 was the removal of episcopal seats to larger
towns, the Church conforming itself to the changes of geog-
raphy. Chichester took the place of Selsey, Salisbury of
Sherborne, Chester of Lichfield, Lincoln of Dorchester, 1085,
Bath of Wells, 1088, and Norwich of Thetford, 1094, which
had taken the place of Elmham, 1078. Osmund, bishop of
Salisbury, nephew of the Conqueror, prepared the liturgical
service called the Sarum use, which was adopted in other
dioceses than his own, and later became one of the chief
sources of the Book of Common Prayer.
23. William Rufus and Anselm.
William II., commonly called William Rufus or the Red
(for his red hair), the third son and first successor of the
Conqueror, ruled from 1087 to 1100. He bought Normandy
from his brother Robert to enable him to make a crusade.
This is the only good thing he did, besides appointing
Anselm primate of England. He inherited all the vices and
none of the virtues of his father. He despised and hated
the clergy. It was said of him that " he feared God but
little, and man not at all." He was not a sceptic or infidel,
as some represent him, but profane and blasphemous. He
believed in God, like the demons, but did not tremble.
He defied the Almighty. When he recovered from a severe
sickness, he said : " God shall never see me a good man ; I
have suffered too much at his hands." He doubted his
justice, and mocked at the ordeals. He declared publicly
that neither St. Peter nor any other saint had any influence
with God, and that he would not ask them for aid. He used
1 The Synod of London, 1075. See Wilkins, I. 363 ; Gee and Hardy, 54.
88 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
to swear " by the holy face of Lucca." l He was not married,
but indulged in gross and shameless debaucheries. The
people said of him that he rose a worse man every morning,
and lay down a worse man every evening.
He had promised Lanfranc at his coronation to exercise
justice and mercy and to protect the freedom o-f the Church,
but soon forgot his vow, and began systematically to plunder
the Church and to oppress the clergy. He robbed the bish-
oprics and abbeys of their income by leaving them vacant
or selling them to the highest bidders. Within four years
he changed thirty cemeteries into royal parks to satisfy his
passion for hunting, which at last cost him his life. He used
to say : " The bread of Christ is rich ; the kings have given
to the Church one-half of its income : why should I not try
to win it back ? "
He kept the see of Canterbury vacant for nearly four years
(1089-1093). At last he yielded, under the influence of a
severe sickness, to the pressure of the better class of bishops
and noblemen, and elected Anselm, who was then in Eng-
land, and well known as a profound theologian and saintly
character. A greater contrast can scarcely be imagined.
While William Rufus delighted in witnessing the tortures
of innocent men and animals, Anselm was singularly tender-
hearted : he saved the life of a hare which was chased by the
hunters and had sought protection under his horse ; he saw
a worthy object for prayer in the sufferings of a bird tor-
tured by a thoughtless child. 2 Yet, with all his gentleness,
he could be firm and unyielding in the defence of truth and
righteousness.
The primacy was forced upon Anselm in spite of his
remonstrance. He foresaw a hard struggle. He compared
1 Per sanctum vultum de Luca. A figure of the crucified Saviour in wood
which was said to have been carved by Nicodemus, and was preserved in the
cathedral at Lucca.
2 These rare traits of character are mentioned by Eadiner in his Vita
Anselmi. Freeman, V. 25.
23. WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM. 89
himself to an old and feeble sheep, and the king to a young,
wild bull. Thus yoked, he was to draw the plough of the
Church of England, with the prospect of being torn to pieces
by the ferocity of the bull. 1 He was received with intense
enthusiasm at Canterbury by the clergy, the monks, and the
people, and was consecrated on the second Sunday of Advent,
1093. He began at once to restore discipline according to
the principles of Hildebrand, though with more moderation
and gentleness.
A short time elapsed before the relations between the king
and the prelate became strained. Anselm supported Urban
II. ; William leaned to the anti-pope Clement III. The ques-
tion of investiture with the pallium at once became a matter of
dispute. The king at first insisted upon Anselm's receiving
it from Clement and then claimed the right to confer it him-
self. Anselm refused to yield and received it, 1095, from Ur-
ban's legate, who brought the sacred vestment to England in a
silver casket. The archbishop gave further offence to the king
by the mean way, as was said, in which he performed his feudal
obligations. 2 William decided to try him in his court. To
this indignity Anselm would, of course, not submit. It was
the old question whether an English ecclesiastic owed pri-
mary allegiance to the pope or to the crown. 3 The arch-
bishop secured the king's reluctant permission, 1097, to go to
Rome. But William's petty spirit pursued the departing prel-
1 Eadraer (Hist. Nov., in Migne's edition of Anselm, II. 368) : " Indomitum
taurum et vetulam ac debilem ovem in aratro conjungere sub uno jugo," etc.
Ranke, Weltgesch. ,VIII. 115, makes here a curious mistake by putting into
Anselm's mouth the saying that England's plough must be drawn by " two
noble and powerful bulls" (von zwei edlen und krdftigen Stieren, dem Konig
und dem Primas).
2 Soon after he was made archbishop, Anselm sent the king 500, a sum far
below what the king expected. On another occasion when the king was start-
ing on a campaign against Wales, Anselm sent what the king regarded as a
beggarly contingent of ill-trained knights.
3 The matters in dispute were discussed at Rockingham at a meeting of
barons and bishops with Anselin at their head. See Freeman, W. Bufus, I.
476 sqq.
90 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
ate by ordering Anselm's baggage searched at Dover. He
seized the revenues of Canterbury, and Anselm's absence was
equivalent to exile. Eadmer reports a remarkable scene before
Anselm's departure. 1 At his last interview with William he
refused to leave the king's presence until he had given him
his blessing. "As a spiritual father to his son, as Archbishop
of Canterbury to the king of England," he said, " I would
fain before I go give you God's blessing." To these words
the king made reply that he did not decline the priestly bles-
sing. It was the last time they met.
Anselm was "most honorably received by the pope, who
threatened the king with excommunication, and pronounced
atti anathema on all laymen who exercised the right of inves-
titure and on all clergymen who submitted to lay-investiture. 2
The Red King was shot dead by an arrow, nobody knows
whether by a hunter or by an assassin, Aug. 2, 1100, while
hunting in the New Forest. " Cut off without shrift, without
repentance, he found a tomb in the Old Minster of Winches-
ter; but the voice of clergy and people, like the voice of one
man, pronounced, by a common impulse, the sentence which
Rome had feared to pronounce. He received the more unique
brand of popular excommunication. No bell was tolled,
no prayer was said, no alms were given for the soul of the one
baptized and anointed ruler, whose eternal damnation was
taken for granted by all men as a thing about which there
could be no doubt." 3
24. Anselm and Henry I.
At the death of the Red King, one archbishopric, four
bishoprics, and eleven abbeys were without pastors. Henry
I., his younger brother, surnamed Beauclerc, ascended the
1 Hist. Nov., II., Migne's ed. 169, 402.
2 According to Eadmer, Hist. Nov., Migne's ed. 159, 414, it was due to An-
selm's intercession that Urban withheld from William Ruf us the anathema.
8 Freeman, Norm. Conq., V. 147.
24. ANSELM AND HENRY I. 91
throne (1100-1135). He connected the Norman blood with
the imperial house of Germany by the marriage of his daugh-
ter Matilda to Henry V. After the emperor's death, Ma-
tilda was privately married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count
of Anjou (1128), and became the mother of Henry II., the
founder of the Plantagenet dynasty.
King Henry I. is favorably known by his strict adminis-
tration of justice. He reconciled the clergy by recalling
Anselm from exile, but soon renewed the investiture con-
troversy. He instituted bishops and abbots, and summoned
Anselm to consecrate them, which he steadfastly refused to
do. He sent him into a second exile (1103-11 06). 1 The
queen, Maud the Good, who had an extraordinary veneration
for the archbishop, strove to mediate between him and her
husband, and urged Anselm to return, even at the sacrifice
of a little earthly power, reminding him that Paul circum-
cised Timothy, and went to the temple to conciliate the Jew-
ish brethren.
Pascal II. excommunicated the bishops who had accepted
investiture from Henry. But the king was not inclined to
maintain a hostile attitude to Anselm. They had an inter-
view in Normandy and appealed to the pope, who confirmed
the previous investitures of the king on condition of his sur-
rendering the right of investiture in future to the Church.
This decision was ratified at Bee, Aug. 26, 1106. The king
promised to restore to Anselm the profits of the see during
his absence, to abstain from the revenues of vacant bishoprics
and abbeys, and to remit all fines to the clergy. He retained
1 While in England, Anselm had celebrated the marriage of Henry to Ma-
tilda, or Eadgyth (as her English name was), daughter of the Scotch king
Malcolm. Her aunt, a nun at Romsey, had placed the veil upon Eadgyth
when she was a child as a protection against violence. There was a difference
of opinion as to whether this was to be construed as a vow. Anselm pro-
nounced her free. Ladies at the time of the Norman Conquest had tempo-
rarily put on the veil as a protection to their virtue. Lanfranc afterwards
declared them free to marry.
92 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1085-1122.
the right of sending to vacant sees a cong d'elire, or notice to
elect, which carried with it the right of nomination. Anselm
now proceeded to consecrate bishops, among them Roger of
Salisbury, who was first preferred to Henry's notice because
he "began prayers quickly and closed them speedily." 1
Anselm returned to England in triumph, and was received
by the queen at the head of the monks and the clergy. At
a council held at Westminster in HOT, 2 the king formally re-
linquished the privilege of investiture, while the archbishop
promised to tolerate the ceremony of homage (which Urban
II. had condemned). The synodical canons against clerical
marriage were renewed and made more rigorous (1102, 1107,
1108); but the pope consented for a time that the sons of
priests might be admitted to orders, for the remarkable rea-
son, as Eadmer reports, that "almost the greater and the
better part of the English clergy " were derived from this
class. 3
During the remaining years of his life, Anselm enjoyed
the friendship and respect of the king, and during the lat-
ter's absence on the Continent in 1108, he was intrusted with
the regency and the care of the royal family. He was can-
onized by the voice of the English people long before the
formal canonization by the pope. 4
After his death, in April, 1109, the primacy remained va-
cant till 1114, when it was conferred upon Ralph of Escures,
bishop of Rochester, who had administered its affairs during
1 See Fuller, Oh. Hist, of Britain, I. 340.
2 A previous council had been held at Westminster in 1102. See Freeman,
V. 221, 226, and Gee and Hardy, pp. 63 sq.
8 Freeman, V. 223: "The newly devised rigor only led to laxity of a
worse kind, which it was intended to stop. But, at any rate, it was now that
the rule of celibacy became for the first time the universal law of the Eng-
lish Church. Anselm's counsel at Westminster [that of 1102] thus marks
an era in our ecclesiastical history."
4 The canonization by Alexander III. came to nothing, but was renewed
by Alexander VI. Dean Church says that Anselm "suffered the indignity
of a canonization at the hands of Borgia."
24. ANSELM AND HENRY I. 93
the interval. He is described as a learned, cheerful, affable,
good-humored, facetious prelate. He was called " nugax"
but his jests and repartees have not been recorded. He and
his two Norman successors, William of Corbeuil, 1123-1136.
and Theobald, 1139-1161, lived on good terms with tin
king and his successor, Stephen. Thomas Becket, an English
man, resumed, in 1162, the controversy between the mitrt
and the crown with greater energy, but less wisdom, than
Anselm.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PAPACY FROM THE CONCORDAT OF WORMS TO
INNOCENT III. A.D. 1122-1198.
On the historical sources for this period down to the middle of the thir-
teenth century, see WATTENBACH : Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittel-
alter, II. 217-442.
25. Innocent IL, 1130-1143, and Eugene III., 1145-1153.
INNOCENT II.: Epistolce et Privilegia, in Migne, Patrol., Tom. 179, fol. 54-
636; his biographies in MURATORI (Her. Ital., Tom. II. and III.) and
WATTEKICH (Pontif. Rom. Vilce, II. 174 sq.). ANACLETUS (antipapa):
Epistolce et Privil., in Migne, Tom. 179, fol. 687-732. EUGENIUS III. :
Epistolce, etc., in Migne, 180, 1013-1614. The Works of ST. BERNARD,
edited by Mabillon, and reprinted in Migne's Patrol. (Tom. 182-185,
Paris, 1855) ; Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl.Hist., XII. 11, etc. ; Bohn's Trans.
IV.
JAFFE: Geschichte des deutschen Eeichs unter Lothar von Sachsen. Berlin,
1843. MIRBT, art. Innocent II. in Herzog, IX. 108 sqq. E. MUHLBACHER :
Die streitigePapstwahl d. J. 1130. Innsbruck, 1876. W. BERNHARDI :
Konrad III. Leipzig, 1883, 2 vols. HEFELE-KNOPFLER, Bd. V. 385-
532. GIESEBRECHT, Bd. IV. 54 sqq. GREGOROVIUS, IV. 403 sqq.
HADCK, IV. 130 sqq. The Biographies of St. Bernard.
CALIXTUS II. was followed by Honorius II., whose rule of
six years, 1124-1130, was an uneventful one. After his death
a dangerous schism broke out between Innocent II., 1130-
1143, and Anacletus II., 1130-1138, who represented two
powerful Roman families, the Frangipani, or Breadmakers, 1
and the Pierleoni.
Innocent, formerly cardinal-legate of Urban II. and medi-
ator of the Concordat of Worms, enjoyed the reputation of
1 The name was derived by legend from the distribution of bread in time
of famine by one of the ancestors of the family. Its coat of arms represented
two lions rampant, holding a loaf of bread between them. Gregorovius,
IV. 404.
94
25. INNOCENT II. AND EUGENE III. 95
superior learning and piety, which even his opponents could
not dispute. He had also the advantage of a prior election,
but of doubtful legal validity, since it was effected only by a
minority of cardinals, who met in great hurry in an unknown
place to anticipate the rival candidate. 1
Anacletus was a son of Pierleone, Petrus Leonis, and a
grandson of Leo, a baptized Jewish banker, who had acquired
great financial, social, and political influence under the Hil-
debrandian popes. A Jewish community with a few hun-
dred members were tolerated in Trastevere and around the
island of the Tiber as a monumental proof of the truth of
Christianity, and furnished some of the best physicians and
richest bankers, who helped the nobility and the popes in
their financial troubles. Anacletus betrayed his Semitic
origin in his physiognomy, and was inferior to Innocent in
moral character; but he secured an election by a majority of
cardinals and the support of the principal noble families and
the Roman community. With the help of the Normans, he
took possession of Rome, banished his opponent, deposed the
hostile cardinals, and filled the college with his friends.
Innocent was obliged to flee to France, and received there
the powerful support of Peter of Cluny and Bernard of Clair-
vaux, the greatest monks and oracles of their age. He was
acknowledged as the legitimate pope by all the monastic
orders and by the kings of France and England.
Lothaire II. (III.) of Saxony, 1125-1137, to whom both
parties appealed, decided for Innocent, led him and St. Ber-
nard to Rome by armed force, and received in turn from the
pope the imperial crown, June 4, 1133.
But after Lothaire's departure, Anacletus regained posses-
sion of Rome, with the help of the Norman duke, Roger, and
1 The thorough investigation of Miihlbacher is unfavorable to the validity
of the election of Gregory (Innocent II.), and Deutsch (note in his edition of
Neander's St. Bernhard, I. 110 sq.) agrees with him, and bases his claim on
purely moral grounds.
96 THE MIDDLH AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
the party of the rival emperor, Conrad III. He made Roger II.
king of Sicily, and thus helped to found a kingdom which
lasted seven hundred and thirty years, till it was absorbed
in the kingdom of Italy, 1860. Innocent retired to Pisa
(1135). Lothaire made a second expedition to Italy and
defeated Roger II. Bernard again appeared at Rome and
succeeded in strengthening Innocent's position. At this
juncture Anacletus died, 1138. The healing of the schism
was solemnly announced at the Second Lateran Council, 1139.
War soon after broke out between Innocent and Roger, and
Innocent was taken prisoner. On his release he confirmed
Roger as king of Sicily. Lothaire had returned to Germany
to die, 1137. Innocent had granted to him the territories
of Matilda for an annual payment. On this transaction
later popes based the claim that the emperor was a papal
vassal.
After the short pontificates of Coelestin II., 1143-1144,
and Lucius II., 1144-1145, Eugene III., a pupil and friend
of St. Bernard, was elected, Feb. 15, 1145, and ruled till
July 8, 1153. He wore the rough shirt of the monks of
Citeaux under the purple. He had to flee from Rome, owing
to the disturbances of Arnold of Brescia, and spent most of
his time in exile. During his pontificate, Edessa was lost
and the second crusade undertaken. Eugene has his chief
interest from his connection with St. Bernard, his wise and
loyal counsellor, who addressed to him his famous treatise
on the papacy, the de consideratione. 1
26. Arnold of Brescia.
OTTO (Bishop of Freising, or Freisingen, d. 1158) : De Gestis Friderici I.
(lib. II. 20). GUNTHER (Ligurinus) : De Gestis Friderici /., an epos
written 1187 (lib. III. vers. 262 sqq.). GERHOH (provost of Reichersberg,
d. 1169): De investigatione Antichrist^ edited by Scheibelberger. Lincii,
1875. JOHN OF SALISBURY: Historia Pontificalia (written c. 1162,
recently discovered), inMon. Germ. Script., XX. c. 31, p. 537. ST. BER-
1 See the chapters on the Second Crusade and St. Bernard.
26. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA. 97
NARD: Epist.,'Migne, 195, 196, 198. WALTER MAP (archdeacon of Oxford,
1196) : De Nugis Curialium, ed. Wright, pp. 41 and 43. The sources are
all hostile to Arnold and the Arnoldists.
J. D. KOLER : De Arnoldo Brixiensi dissert. Gottingen, 1742. GPADA-
GNINI : Apologia di Arnaldo da Brescia. Pavia, 1790, 2 vols. K. BECK :
A. v. Brescia. Basel, 1824. H. FRANCKE : Arnold von Brescia und
seine Zeit. Zurich, 1825 (eulogistic). BENT: Essay sur A. d. Brescia.
Geneve, 1856. FEDERICO ODORICI : Arnaldo da Brescia. 1861.
GEORGES GUIBAL : Arnauld de Brescia et les Hohenstaufen ou la ques-
tion du pouvoir temporel de la papaute du moyen age. Paris, 1868.
* GIESEBRECHT : Arnold von Brescia. Miinchen, 1873 (in the Reports
of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences) . Comp. his Gesch. der d. Kaiser-
zeit, IV. 314 sqq. A. DI GIOVANNI DE CASTRO : Arnaldo da Brescia e
la revoluzione romana dell XII. secolo. Livoruo, 1875. A. HAUSRATH :
Arnold von Brescia. Leipzig, 1891. DEUTSCH, A. von Brescia, in
Herzog, II. 117-122 ; GREGOROVIUS, IV. 479 sqq. The Lives of St.
Bernard, especially Vacandard and Neander-Deutsch.
During the pontificates of Innocent II., Eugene III., and
Adrian IV. occurred the interesting episode of Arnold of
Brescia, an unsuccessful ecclesiastical and political agitator,
who protested against the secularization of the Church, and
tried to restore it to apostolic poverty and apostolic purity.
These two ideas were closely connected in his mind. He
proclaimed the principle that the Church and the clergy, as
well as the monks, should be without any temporal posses-
sions, like Christ and the Apostles, and live from the tithes and
the voluntary offerings of the people. Their calling is purely
spiritual. All the things of this earth belong to the laity
and. the civil government.
He practised what he taught, and begged his daily bread
from house to house. He was a monk of severe ascetic piety,
enthusiastic temper, popular eloquence, well versed in the
Scriptures, restless, radical, and fearless. 1 He agreed with
the Catholic orthodoxy, except on the doctrines of the eucha-
1 Otto von Freising calls him " singularitatis amator, novitatis cupidus,"
and ranks him with those characters who are apt to produce heresies and to
make schismatic disturbances. St. Bernard denounces him as the author of a
schisma pessir.ium, but bears testimony to his ascetic piety, yet with the cruel
charge of satanic thirst for the blood of souls : " Homo est neque manducans
neque bibens, solo cum diabolo esuriens et sitiens sanguinem antmarwm. "
H
98 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
rist and infant baptism; but his views on these sacraments
are not known. 1
With this ecclesiastical scheme he combined a political
one. He identified himself with the movement of the Romans
to emancipate themselves from the papal authority, and to
restore the ancient republic. By giving all earthly power
to the laity, he secured the favor of the laity, but lost the
influence of the clergy. It was the political complication
which caused his ruin.
Arnold was a native of Brescia in Lombardy, and an or-
dained reader in the Church. He was a pupil of Abselard,
and called armor-bearer to this Goliath. 2 He sympathized
with his spirit of independence and hostility to Church
authority, and may have been influenced also (as Neander
assumes) by the ethical principles of that magnetic teacher.
He certainly, at a later period, sided with him against St.
Bernard, who became his bitter enemy. But with the excep-
tion of the common opposition to the hierarchy, they differed
very widely. Abselard was a philosopher, Arnold, a politician;
Abselard, a speculative thinker, Arnold, a practical preacher;
Abselard, a rationalist, Arnold, an enthusiast. The former
undermined the traditional orthodoxy, the latter attacked the
morals of the clergy and the temporal power of the Church.
Arnold was far below Abselard in intellectual endowment,
but far more dangerous in the practical drift of his teaching,
which tended to pauperize the Church and to revolutionize
society. Baronius calls him " the father of political heresies."
In his ascetic zeal for the moral reform of the clergy,
1 Von Freising : " Prater hcec [his views on Church property] de sacra-
mento altaris, et baptismo paroulorum non sane dicitur sensisse." Some
Baptists claim him for his supposed rejection of infant baptism. The at-
tempts to bring him into contact with the Waldenses (who are of later date)
have no foundation.
2 Freising : " Arnaldusiste et Italia, civitat? Brixia oriundus, ejvsdemqite ec-
clesice clericus ac tantum lector ordinatus, Petrum Abailardum olim prcecep-
torem habuerat." St. Bernard seems to place the acquaintance at a later
period : " Execratus a Petro apostolo, adhceserat Petro Abailardo."
26. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA. 99
Arnold was in sympathy with the Hildebrandian party, but
in his views of the temporal power of the pope, he went to
the opposite extreme. Hildebrand aimed at the theocratic
supremacy of the Church over the State ; Arnold sought the
welfare of the Church in her complete separation from the
State and of the clerical office from secular entanglements.
Pascal II., we may say, had prepared the way for this theory
when he was willing to sacrifice the investiture to the em-
peror. The Hildebrandian reform had nearly passed away,
and the old corruptions reappeared. The temporal power
of the Church promoted the worldliness of the clergy. The
author of the Historia Pontificalis says that Arnold's doctrine
agreed with the Gospel, but stood in crying contrast with the
actual condition of things. St. Bernard, his opponent, was as
much opposed as he to the splendor and luxury of bishops,
the secular cares of the popes, and expressed a wish that he
might see the day when " the Church, as in olden times,
should cast her net for souls, and not for money." 1 All
the monastic orders protested against the worldliness of the
Church, and realized the principle of apostolic poverty within
the wall of convents. But Arnold extended it to the secu-
lar clergy as well, and even went so far as to make poverty
a condition of salvation for priests and monks. 2
Arnold's sermons gained great popular applause in Lom-
bardy, and caused bitter disputes between the people and
the bishop of Brescia. He was charged before the Lateran
Synod of 1139 with inciting the laity against the clergy, was
deposed as a schismatic (not as a heretic), commanded to be
silent, and was expelled from Italy.
He went again to France and was entangled in the contro-
versy of Abselard with Bernard. Pope Innocent condemned
1 Epist., 238 ad Eugen. III.
2 Ottov. Ereising, I.e. : " Dicebat, nee Clericos proprietatem, necEpiscopos
regalia, nee monachos possessiones habentes aliqua rations salvari posse.
Cuncta hcec Principis esse, ab ejusque benejicentia in usum tantum laicorum
cedere opportere. "
100 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
both Abselard and Arnold to silence and seclusion in a con-
vent, 1140. Abselard, weary of strife and life, submitted
and retired to the convent of Cluny, where two years later
he died in peace. 1 But Arnold began in Paris a course of
public lectures against the worldliness and immorality of the
clergy. He exposed especially the avarice of the bishops.
He also charged St. Bernard with unholy ambition and envy
against scholars. Bernard called him a man whose speech
was honey, whose doctrine was poison. At his request the
king expelled Arnold from France.
Arnold fled to Zurich and was kindly received and pro-
tected by the papal legate, Cardinal Guido, his former fellow-
student in Paris. 2 But Bernard pursued him even there and
denounced him to the bishop of Constance.
After a few years of unknown exile, Arnold appeared in
Rome as the leader of a political movement. Innocent II.
had allowed him to return to Italy, Eugene III. had par-
doned him on condition of his doing penance in the holy
places of Rome. But after the flight of this pope to France,
Arnold preached again the doctrine of apostolic poverty,
called the popes and cardinals Pharisees and scribes, and
their church a house of merchandise and den of robbers. He
was protected by the Roman senate, and idolized by the peo-
ple. The Romans had renounced the papal authority, expelled
the pope, substituted a purely secular government after the
ancient model, and invited Conrad III. to assume the role of
Constantine I. or Justinian. They lost themselves in dreams
1 Tosti, in his Storia di Abelardo, Naples, 1851, says of Abselard that he
had the courage of thought, but not the courage of action (il coraggio del
pensiero non quello delV azione).
2 This Guido was formerly identified with Guido of Castello who became
Pope Ccelestin II., Sept. 26, 1143, and ruled five months. But Giesebrecht
and Gregorovius (IV. 455) distinguish the two. Francke exaggerates Arnold's
influence upon Swiss liberty while at Zurich. Milman makes him a fore-
runner of Zwingli, who opposed the hierarchy ; but Zwingli knew little or
nothing of Arnold, and had no idea of pauperizing the Church, or of a separa-
tion of Church and State.
26. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA. 101
of government. The tradition of the old Roman rule con-
trolled the Middle Ages in various forms : it lived as a
universal monarchy in the German Empire; as a universal
theocracy in the papacy j as a short-lived republic in the
Roman people. The modern Italians who oppose the tem-
poral power of the pope are more sensible : they simply
claim the natural right of the Italian people to govern them-
selves, and they confine the dominion of Rome to Italy.
Arnold stepped out of the ecclesiastical into the political
sphere, and surrounded the new republic with the halo of
religion. He preached in his monastic gown, on the ruins
of the Capitol, to the patres conscripti, and advised them to
rebuild the Capitol, and to restore the old order of senators
and knights. His emaciated face gave him a ghost-like
appearance and deepened the effect of his eloquence.
But the republican experiment failed. The people were
at last forced into submission by the interdict of Pope
Adrian IV. Arnold was banished from Rome, 1154, and
soon afterwards hanged by order of Emperor Frederick I.,
who hated democracy and republicanism. His body was
burnt and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber, 1155,
lest his admirers should worship his bones. 1
Arnold's was a voice of protest against the secular aims of
the papacy and the worldliness of the clergy which still has
its hearers. " So obstinate is the ban of the Middle Ages un-
der which Rome is still held, "says Gregorovius," that the soul
of a heretic of the twelfth century has not yet found rest, but
must still haunt Rome." The Catholic Bishop Hefele refused
to class him among " real heretics." 2 In 1883 Brescia raised a
monument to its distinguished son.
The Arnoldists continued for some time to defend the doc-
1 According to a Brescian poem, Arnold refused to recant and made
only the single request for time for prayer before dying. Gregorovius, IV.
545.
2 Unter die eigentlichen Heretiker. Hefele denies the errors ascribed to
Arnold by Otto of Freising. Kirchengesch. 407.
102 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
trines of their master, and were declared heretics by a council
of Verona, 1184, after which they disappeared.
But the idea of apostolic poverty and the opposition to the
temporal power of the papacy reappeared among the Spirit-
uals of the Franciscan order. Arnold's political scheme
of restoring the Roman republic was revived two hundred
years later by Cola di Rienzi (1347), but with no better
success ; for Rienzi was murdered, his body burnt, and the
ashes were scattered to the winds (1354).
27. The Popes and the Hohenstaufen.
I. PRINCIPAL SOURCES :
(1) The Eegesta of the popes from Anastasius IV. to Innocent III. (1153-
1198) by JAFFE-WATTENBACH (ed. 1886). The Opera of these popes
in MIGNE'S Patrol. Lat. The Vitce of the popes by PLATINA, WAT-
TERICH, etC.
(2) OTTO (half-brother of King Conrad III. and uncle of Frederick Barba-
rossa, and partial to him, bishop of Freising, or Freisingen, in Upper
Bavaria, d. 1158) : De Gestis Friderici I. , finished by his pupil RAHEWIN
or REGUIN. Best ed. by Waitz, 1884. Also his Chronicle (De duabus
Civitatibus, after the model of Augustin's De Civitate Dei), continued by
OTTO of ST. BLASIEN (in the Black Forest) till 1209. First critical ed.
by R. Wilmans in Hon. Ger. Scr., XX. 83-493. GUNTHER LIGURINCS
wrote in 1187 a Latin epic of 6576 verses on the deeds of the Emperor
Frederick I. till 1160. See Wattenbach's Geschichtsquellen, II. 241 sqq.
II. WORKS ON THE HOHENSTAUFEN PERIOD :
JAFFE : Geschichte des deutschen Heichs unter Konrad III., Hanover, 1845.
FR. VON RAUMER : Geschichte der Hohenstaufen. Leipzig, 1823. 4th ed.
1871. W. ZIMMERMANN: Die Hohenstaufen oder der Kampf der Mon-
archie gegen den Papst und die republ. Freiheit. Stuttgart, 1838. 2d ed.
1865, 2 vols. G. DE CHERRIER : Histoire de la lutte des papes et clesem-
pereursdela maisonde Souabe. Paris, 1841, 4 vols. *HERMANN REUTKR
(Professor of Church History in Gottingen, d. 1888): Alexander III. nnd
die Kirche seiner Zeit. 1845. 2d ed. thoroughly rewritten, Leipzig, 1800-
1864; 3 vols. (A work of fifteen years 1 study.) SCHIRRMACHER : Kai*er
Friedrich II. Gottingen, 1859-1864, 4 vols.; Die letzten Hohenstaufen. Got-
tingen, 1871. P. SCHEFFER-BOICHORST : K. Friedrichs /. letzter Streit
mil der Kurie. Berlin, 1866. H. PRUTZ : K. Friedrich I. Danzig,
1871-1874, 3 vols. DEL GCIDICE : H guidizio e la condanna di Corra-
dino. Naples, 1876. RIBBECK : Friedr. I. und die romische Kurie.
Leipzig, 1881. UGO BALZANI : The Popes and the Hohenstaufen.
London and New York, 1888 (pp. 261). GIESEBRECHT, BRYCE, 167 sqq.;
GREGOROVIUS, IV. 424 sqq.; HAUCK, IV.; HEFELE-KNOPFLER, V.
633 sqq.
27. THE POPES AND THE HOHENSTAUFEN. 103
With Conrad III. the powerful family of the Hohenstau-
fen ascended the imperial throne and occupied it from 1138
till 1254. They derive the name from the family castle
Hohenstaufen, on a hill in the Rough Alp near Goppingen
inSwabia. 1 They were descended from a knight, Friedrich
von Biiren, in the eleventh century, and his son Friedrich von
Stauf en, a faithful adherent of Emperor Henry IV., who made
him duke of Swabia (1079), and gave him his daughter Agnes
in marriage. They were thus connected by blood with the
antagonist of Pope Hildebrand, and identified with the cause
of the Ghibellines against the Guelphs in their bloody feuds
in Germany and Italy. Henry VI., 1190-1197, acquired by
marriage the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. His son, Fred-
erick II., raised his house to the top of its prosperity, but
was in his culture and taste more an Italian than German
prince, and spent most of his time in Italy.
The Hohenstaufen or Swabian emperors maintained the prin-
ciple of imperialism, that is, the dignity and independence of
the monarchy, as a divine institution, against papal sacerdotal-
ism on the one hand, and against popular liberty on the other.
They made common cause with the popes, and served their
purposes in the crusades: three of them, Conrad III., Fred-
erick I., and Frederick II., undertook crusades against the
Saracens; Conrad III. engaged in the second, which was a
failure; Frederick I. perished in Syria; Frederick II. cap-
tured Jerusalem. The Hohenstaufen made also common
cause with the popes against political and doctrinal dissent:
Barbarossa sacrificed and punished by death Arnold of Brescia
as a dangerous demagogue; and Frederick II., though prob-
ably himself an unbeliever, persecuted heretics.
1 The castle was destroyed in the Peasants' War in 1525. At the foot of
the hill is a village and an old church with a fresco picture of Barbarossa,
bearing the inscription: "Hie transibat Ccesar, amor bonorum, terror malo-
rwm." "Here Caesar passed away, beloved by the good, dreaded by the bad."
Close by is the ancient seat of the Hohenzollern family. On the site of the old
castle a splendid castle was erected by William I. , the Emperor of Germany.
104 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
But on the question of supremacy of power, the Hohen-
staufen were always in secret or open war with the popes,
and in the end were defeated. The conflict broke out under
Frederick Barbarossa, who after long years of contention died
at peace with the Church. It was continued by his grandson
Frederick II. who died excommunicated and deposed from
his throne by the papacy. The dynasty went out in tragic
weakness in Conradin, the last male representative, who was
beheaded on the charge of high treason, 1268. This conflict
of the imperial house of the Hohenstauf en was more imposing
than the conflict waged by Henry IV. with Gregory and his
successors because of the higher plane on which it was fought
and the greater ability of the secular antagonists engaged.
Lasting more than one hundred years, it forms one of the most
august spectacles of the Middle Ages, and furnishes some of
the most dramatic scenes in which kings have ever figured.
The historian Gregorovius has felt justified in saying that
" this Titanic war of the Middle Ages filled and connected
the centuries and formed the greatest spectacle of all ages."
After the fall of the Hohenstaufen, the German Empire
maintained, till its death in 1806, a nominal connection with
the papacy, but ceased to be the central political power of
Europe, except in the period of the Reformation under Charles
V., 1519-1558, when it was connected with the crowns of
Austria, the Low Countries, and Spain, and the newly dis-
covered lands of America, and when that mighty monarch,
true to his Austrian and Spanish descent, retarded the Prot-
estant movement for national independence and religious free-
dom. The new German Empire, founded on the ruins of the
old and the defeat of France (1870), is ruled by a hereditary
Protestant emperor.
28.- ADRIAN IV. AND FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. 105
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE:
A.D.
POPES.
THE HOHENSTAUFEN.
A.D.
1130-1143
Innocent II.
Conrad III.
1138-1152
1143-1144
Ccelestine II.
Crowned emperor at Alx la Chapelle
1144-1145
Lucius II.
by the papal legates.
1145-1153
Eugene III.
Frederick I. (Barbarossa) .
1152-1190
1153-1154
Anastasius IV.
(Nephew of Conrad.)
1154-1159
Adrian IV.
Crowned emperor by Adrian IV.
1165
1159-1181
Alexander III.
1181-1185
Lucius III.
1185-1187
Urban III.
1187
Gregory VIII.
1187-1191
Clement III.
Henry VI.
1190-1197
1191-1198
Coelestine III.
(Son of Barbarossa.)
Crowned emperor by Coelestine III.
1191
King of Sicily.
1194
1198-1216
Innocent III.
Otto IV.
1209-1215
Crowned by Innocent III.
1209
Deposed by the Lateran Council.
1215
1216-1227
Honorius III.
Frederick II.
1227-1241
Gregory IX.
(Son of Henry VI. and Constance of
1241
Coelestine IV.
Sicily.)
Crowned emperor by Honorius III.
1220
1241-1254
Innocent IV.
Conrad IV.
1250-1254
(Second son of Frederick II.)
Crowned king of the Romans.
1237
Excommunicated, 1252, and again,
1254.
1254-1261
Alexander IV.
Interregnum.
1254-1273
1261-1264
Urban IV.
Conradin.
1265-1268
Clement IV.
(Son of Conrad, the last of the Ho-
henstaufen, b. 1252.)
Beheaded.
1268
28. Adrian IV. and Frederick Barbarossa.
Lives of Hadrian in MURATORI, Script. Her. Ital. I. III. MIGNE, vol. 188.
OTTO OF FREISING. WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH, 2 vols. London, 1856.
R. RABY: Pope Hadrian IV. London, 1849. TARLETON: Nicolas
Breakspeir, Englishman and Pope, 1896. - L. GINNELL : The Doubtful
Grant of Ireland of Pope Adrian IV. to Henry II., 1899. O. J.
THATCHER: Studies cone. Adrian IV. Chicago, 1903. pp. 88. REU-
TER: Alex. III., vol. I. 1-48, 479-487.
106 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
Eugene III. was followed by Anastasius IV., whose rule
lasted only sixteen months.
His successor was Nicolas Breakspear, the first and the
only Englishman that has (thus far) worn the tiara. He
was the son of a poor priest of St. Albans. He went to
France in pursuit of bread and learning, became a monk,
prior, and abbot of the convent of St. Rufus, between Aries
and Avignon. He studied theology and canon law. Eu-
gene III. made him cardinal-bishop of Albano, and sent him
as legate to Norway and Sweden, where he organized the
Church and brought it into closer contact with Rome.
He occupied the papal chair as Adrian IV., from 1154 to
1159, with great ability and energy. A beggar raised to the
highest dignity in Christendom ! The extremes of fortune
met in this Englishman. Yet he felt happier in his poverty
than in his power. He declared soon after his consecration
that " the papal chair was full of thorns and the papal mantle
full of holes and so heavy as to load down the strongest
man." And after some experience in that high office, he
said : " Is there a man in the world so miserable as a pope ?
I have found so much trouble in St. Peter's chair that all
the bitterness of my former life appears sweet in com-
parison." 1
The Romans, under the lead of Arnold, requested him to
resign all claim to temporal rule ; but he refused, and after a
bloody attack made by an Arnoldist upon one of the cardi-
nals in the open street, he laid for the first time in history
the interdict on the city. By this unbloody, yet awful
and most effective, weapon, he enforced the submission of the
people. He abolished the republican government, expelled
Arnold and his adherents, and took possession of the Lateran.
At this time, Frederick I., called Barbarossa (Redbeard) by
the Italians from the color of his beard, one of the bravest,
strongest, and most despotic of German emperors, the
1 John of Salisbury, PoJycraticus, VIII. 23 ; Migne, 199, 814.
28. ADRIAN IV. AND FREDERICK BARJBAkOSSA. 1U7
sleeper in Kyffhauser, 1 made, with a powerful army, his
first expedition to Italy to receive the iron crown of royalty
from the Lombards and the golden crown of empire from the
pope (1154).
The pope demanded, as the first condition of his coronation,
the surrender of Arnold. With this Barbarossa willingly
complied and ordered the execution of the popular agitator.
In his first interview with Adrian, he kissed the pope's toe,
but neglected the ceremony of holding the stirrup on descend-
ing from his palfrey. Adrian felt indignant and refused to
give him the kiss of peace. When informed that this was an
old custom, Barbarossa on the following day complied with
it, but in an ambiguous way by holding the left stirrup in-
stead of the right. He took forcible possession of Trastevere,
and was solemnly invested, anointed, and crowned, according
to the prescribed ritual, in St. Peter's, amid the acclamations
of the curia, the clergy, and the army (June 13, 1155). An
insurrection of the Roman people was speedily suppressed,
the emperor leading the charge into the rebel ranks. But
on the next morning he retired with the pope to the Tibur-
tine hills. He was reluctantly compelled by the want of sup-
plies and by rumors of rebellion in Lombardy to return with
his army. The pope, shut out from Rome, without foreign
or domestic ally, retired to Benevento, was besieged there
by King William of Sicily (son and successor of Roger II.)
and forced by desertion and famine to submit to the terms of
the conqueror by investing him with the kingdom of Sicily,
the duchy of Apulia, and the principality of Capua. This
involved him in a controversy with the emperor, who regarded
1 See vol. IV. 258, and Riickert's poem there quoted. Em. Geibel also
wrote a beautiful poem on the German dream of sleep and revival of Bar-
barossa :
" Tiefim Schoosse des Kyffhiiusers
Bel der Ampel rothem Schein
Sitzt der alte Kaiser Friedrlch
Andem Tisch von Afarmorstein," etc.
108 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
Apulia and Capua as parts of the empire. He protested
against the divorce from his first, and the marriage to his
second, wife, 1156.
To these occasions of offence Adrian added another which
Frederick would not bear. It was evoked by the ill-treat-
ment done by robbers to the archbishop of Lund on his way
from Rome through Germany to his Scandinavian diocese. 1
Adrian spoke of Frederick's empire as a benefice, beneficium,
a word which meant either a fief or a gift. In either case
the implication was offensive to the Germans, and they chose
to interpret it as a claim that the emperor held his empire as
a fief of the apostolic see. Two legates, sent by Adrian,
attempted to soften down the meaning of the imprudent
expression.
The pope was too much of a hierarch and Frederick too
much of an emperor to live in peace. In 1158 Frederick
led his army across the Alps to reduce Milan and other
refractory Lombard cities to submission. Having accom-
plished this, he assembled a diet on the plain of Roncaglia, near
Piacenza, which is memorable for the decision rendered by Bo-
logna jurists, that the emperor held his empire by independent
divine right and not by the will of the pope. This was the
most decisive triumph the empire had won since the opening
of the conflict with Henry IV. But the decision of profes-
sors of law did not change the policy of the papacy.
Adrian again gave offence by denying the emperor's right
to levy a tax for military purposes, fodrum, on estates claimed
by the papacy and demanded that he should recognize the
papal claim of feudal rights over the Matilda grant, Sardinia,
Corsica, Ferrara, and the duchy of Spoleto. Frederick
1 Eskill of Lund seems to have had the loftiest ideas of prelatical preroga-
tive, and boasted that he was accustomed to command kings, not obey them.
It is quite possible the emperor took inward satisfaction at his custody.
Hauck, IV. 210. Adrian's letter, Mirbt, Quellen, 119 sq., speaks of the
treatment of the archbishop as "that fearful and execrable deed and sacrile-
gious crime," illud horrendum et execrabile facinus et piaculare Jlagitium.
28. ADRIAN IV. AND FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. 109
proudly retorted that instead of owing fealty to the pope, the
popes owed fealty to the emperor, inasmuch as it was by the
gift of the emperor Constantino that Pope Sylvester secured
possession of Rome. A war of letters followed. Adrian
was intending to punish his imperial foe with excommunica-
tion when he was struck down by death at Anagni. He was
buried in St. Peter's in an antique sarcophagus of red gran-
ite which is still shown. So ended the career of a man who
by his moral character and personal attractions had lifted
himself up from the condition of a child of a poor cleric to
the supreme dignity of Christendom, and ventured to face the
proudest monarch as his superior and to call the imperial
crown a papal beneficium. 1
This English pope, who laid the city of Rome under the
interdict, which no Italian or German pope had dared to do,
presented Ireland to the crown of England, on the ground
that all the islands of the Christian world belong to the
pope by virtue of Constantino's donation. The curious bull
Lauddbiliter, encouraging Henry II. to invade and subjugate
the land and giving it to him and to his heirs for a possession,
may not be genuine, but the authorization was certainly made
by Adrian as John of Salisbury, writing about 1159, attests,
and it was renewed by Alexander III. and carried out, 1171. 2
1 Gregorovius, IV. 560, after praising his merits, says of Adrian, " He was
shrewd, practical, and unyielding as Anglo-Saxons are wont to be." His
" nature was as firm and strong as the granite of his tomb."
2 The subject has been thoroughly discussed by Professors Thatcher and
Scheffer-Boichorst before him. John of Salisbury, Polycr. VI. 24 ; Migne,
199, 623, distinctly says that Adrian, " listening to his petitions, conceded
and gave " Ireland to Henry and his heirs on the ground that all islands "by
ancient law and Constantino's donation, are said to belong to the Church."
The pope sent to the king through John a ring of gold set with a precious
stone to be a seal of investiture. There is no good reason to doubt this
statement. And we know from Roger de Wendover, Rolls Series, I. 11,
that an English embassy was sent to Adrian to secure this permission.
The bull Laudabiliter (Mansi, XXI. 788), which formally confers the island
upon the English crown and demands from it the payment of Peter's Pence,
is found also in Roger de Wendover (Giles, Trans., I. 529) and Giraldus.
Upon internal grounds its genuineness is considered doubtful or flatly denied,
110 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
The loyal sons of Ireland will hardly want to have a second
trial of an English pope.
29. Alexander III. in Conflict with Barbarossa.
See the literature in 27, especially RENTER'S Alex. III. Vita Alexandri
auctore Bosone Card., in WATTERICH, II. 377 sqq. MIGNE, Tom.
200. The Eegesta of Alexander III. in JAFFE-WATTENBACH'S Keg.
Pont. Kom., pp. 145-418 ; and of the anti-popes, Victor IV., Pascal III.,
Calixtus III., and Innocent III., ibid., pp. 418-430. MILMAN, bk. VIII.
chs. VIII. and IX. GREENWOOD, bk. XII. chs. III.-VII. GREGORO-
vius, IV. 525 sqq. ; HEFELE-KNOPFLER, V. 570-720. MORITZ MEYER :
DieWahl Alex. III. uml Victors IV. Gottingen, 1871. ED w. A.
FREEMAN : Frederick the First, King of Italy, in his " Historical Essays,"
London, 1871, pp. 252-282. P. SCHEFFER-BOICHORST ; Friedrich I.
letzte Streit mit der Kurie, 1866. WATTENBACH, 167 sqq.; HAUCK,
IV. 227-311. GIETL: Die Sentenzen Eolands, nachmals Alexander
III. Freib., 1891.
With Alexander III. (1159-1181) the conflict between
Csesarism and sacerdotalism, which had begun under Adrian,
assumed a more serious character. It was not a war for
destr action, but for supremacy on the one hand and sub-
mission on the other. " Who shall be the greater ? " that
was the question. It was the old contention between Church
and State under a new phase. Csesar and pope were alike
Catholic Christians as far as they had any religion at all.
They were indispensable to each other. The emperor or
king needed a pope, as a kind of chief chaplain and father
confessor for the control of the consciences of his subjects ;
the pope needed the secular arm of an emperor for the
protection of the property and rights of the Church and
the prosecution of heretics. The emperors elected anti-popes,
and the popes supported rival emperors. It was the ambition
of the Hohenstaufen to keep Germany and Italy united ; it
as by Thatcher. This author gives, p. 4, a list of review articles on the
subject. Scholarship and patriotism have made it possible for Irish writers
to use much argument to show that the bull is a forgery and the alleged
fact a fancy, whether of a prophetic enemy of Ireland or by a historical
bungler is not known. The Protestant has an easier way out of the difficulty
in affirming that the pope may make mistakes.
29. ALEXANDER III. IN CONFLICT. Ill
was the interest of the popes to keep them separated, and to
foment division in Germany and in Italy, according to the
maxim, ''Divide et inipera."
On the 7th of September, 1159, Cardinal Roland, the chan-
cellor of the Roman curia and a distinguished canonist,
ascended the papal chair as Alexander III. He had previously
been professor at Bologna, and written the first work on
the Decretum Gratiani. He had been created cardinal by
Eugene III. He had once offended Barbarossa by the ques-
tion : " From whom does the emperor receive his dignity if
not from the pope ? " He had also advised Adrian to excom-
municate the emperor. He was a scholar, a statesman, and
a vigorous champion of the Hildebrandian theocracy. He
had an unusually long pontificate of twenty-one years, and is
the most conspicuous pope between Gregory VII. and Inno-
cent III. He had a checkered career of fortune and misfor-
tune in a conflict with the emperor and four anti-popes ;
but he consistently adhered to his principles, and at last
triumphed over his enemies by moral force and the material
aid of the Norrnans in the south and the Lombards in the
north.
The election of Roland by fourteen cardinals was immedi-
ately followed by the election of Cardinal Octavian of St.
Cecilia, the imperial anti-pope, who called himself Victor IV.,
and at once took possession of the Vatican. Roland was
consecrated at Ninfa, Octavian in the convent of Farfa.
They were quartered in the Campagna, a few miles distant
from each other, and published contradictory reports with
charges of disgraceful violence at the election. 1
The emperor, who was then besieging the city of Cremona,
being appealed to by both parties (though with different
1 Octavian, according to the report of his enemies, plucked the papal
cope from the shoulders of Roland, and invested himself with such inde-
cent haste that the cope was reversed, and the back of it appeared on his
breast. The mistake created derisive laughter, and was construed as a divine
judgment.
112 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
feelings), and using a right exercised by Constantine, Theo-
dosius, Justinian, Charlemagne, and Otto, summoned a coun-
cil at Pavia to investigate and decide the case, 1160. 1 The
rival popes were invited by messengers to appear in person.
Octavian, who was always an imperialist, accepted the invi-
tation. Roland distrusted the emperor, and protested against
his right to call a council without his permission. He said
that he honored him as a special defender of the Church
above all other princes, but that God had placed the pope
above kings.
The partisan council, which consisted chiefly of bishops
from Germany and North Italy, after a grave debate, unani-
mously decided in favor of Octavian, and excommunicated
Roland, Feb. 11, 1160. The emperor paid the customary
honors to Victor IV., held his stirrup and kissed his toe.
Alexander issued from Anagni a counter-excommunication
against the anti-pope and the emperor, March 24, 1160.
He thereby encouraged revolt in Lombardy and division in
Germany. Another schism rent the Church.
The rival popes despatched legates to all the courts of Eu-
rope. France, Spain, and England sided with Alexander.
He took refuge in France for three years (1162-1165), and
was received with enthusiasm. The kings of France and
England, Louis VII. and Henry II., walked on either side of
his horse, holding the bridle, and conducting him into the
town of Courcy on the Loire. Germany, Hungary, Bohemia,
Norway, and Sweden supported Victor. Italy was divided:
Rome and Tuscany were under the power of the emperor;
Sicily favored the Gregorian pope; the flourishing commer-
cial and manufacturing cities of Lombardy were discontented
with the despotic rule of Barbarossa, who was called the
destroyer of cities. He put down the revolt with an iron
hand; he razed Milan to the ground after a long and atro-
1 The document is given in Rahewin, Gesta Frid. IV. 64, and Mirbt, Qitel-
len, 121.
29. ALEXANDER III. IN CONFLICT. 113
cious siege, scattered the population, and sent the venerated
relics of the Magi to the cathedral of Cologne, March, 1162.
Victor IV. died in April, 1164. Pascal III. was elected
his successor without regard to the canonical rules. At the
request of the emperor, he canonized Charles the Great
(1165).
Alexander III. put himself at the head of the Lombard
league against the emperor ; city after city declared itself for
him. In September, 1165, he returned to Italy with the help
of Sicily, and French and English gold, and took possession
of Rome.
In November, 1166, Frederick crossed the Alps a fourth
time, with a strong army, marched to Rome, captured the
Leonine city, put Pascal III. in possession of St. Peter's, and
was crowned again, with Beatrice, Aug. 1, 1167. Alexan-
der defended the city on the other side of the Tiber, but
soon withdrew to Benevento. The emperor, victorious over
armies, found a more formidable enemy in the Roman fever,
which made fearful ravages among his bishops, noblemen,
and soldiers. He lost in a few weeks his bravest knights
and two thousand men by the plague. He broke up his
camp in great haste, and marched to Pavia (September,
1167). 1 He found all Lombardy in league against him,
and recrossed the Alps for safety, alone and almost a fugi-
tive, but with unbroken spirit and a determination to re-
turn.
The second anti-pope died, Sept. 20, 1168, and with him
the power of the schism collapsed. Calixtus III. was elected
his successor, but he was a mere shadow, 1168-1178. 2
1 Thomas a Becket, in a letter congratulating Alexander, compared Fred-
erick's discomfiture by pestilence to Sennacherib's defeat at Jerusalem.
2 Chron. xxxii : 21.
2 His few acts are recorded in Jafffi-Wattenbach, Regesta, pp. 429-430.
He submitted to Alexander, and was made archbishop of Benevento. Of the
fourth anti-pope, LandoSitino, who called himself Innocent III. (1179-1180),
nothing is recorded but his election and imprisonment, ibid., p. 431.
114 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
Barbarossa undertook a fifth campaign to Italy in 1174.
He destroyed Susa, and, descending through Piedmont,
besieged the new city of Alessandria, which was named in
honor of Alexander III., and strongly fortified. Here he
found determined resistance. His forces were weakened by
a severe winter. He was forsaken by his strongest ally, the
Saxon duke, Henry the Lion. He fought a pitched battle
against the Lombards, near Legnano, May 29, 1176. He
rushed, as usual, into the thickest of the fight, but was
defeated after terrible slaughter, and lost his shield, banner,
cross, lance, and coffers of silver and gold. He retired with
the remnant of his army to Pavia. He was left without a
single ally, and threatened in Germany by the dangerous
rivalry of Henry the Lion. He now took serious steps
towards a reconciliation with Alexander, the spiritual head
of his enemies.
The emperor sent Archbishop Christian of Mainz (his
chancellor, ablest general, and diplomat), Archbishop Wich-
mann of Magdeburg, Bishop Conrad of Worms, and Proto-
notary Wortwin to Anagni, with full powers to treat with
the pope (October, 1176). Alexander received the commis-
sioners with marked respect, and in private conferences, last-
ing over a fortnight, he arranged with them the preliminary
terms of peace, which were to be ratified at Venice during a
personal interview between him and the emperor.
The pope, provided with a safe-conduct by the emperor,
left Anagni on Christmas, 1176, in company with his cardi-
nals and the two commissioners of the kingdom of Sicily,
Archbishop Romuald of Salerno and Count Roger of Andria,
and arrived at Venice, March 24, 1177. The emperor tarried
at Chioggia, near Venice, till July 23. The peace negotia-
tions between the pope and the imperial commissioners began
in May and lasted till July. They were conducted on the
basis of the previous negotiations in Anagni.
30. THE PEACE OF VENICE. 115
30. The Peace of Venice. 1177.
The negotiations resulted in the Peace of Venice, which
was embodied in twenty-eight articles. 1 Alexander was
acknowledged as legitimate pope. Calixtus, the anti-pope,
was remanded to an abbey, while his cardinals were reduced
to the positions they had occupied before their appointment
to the curia. Beatrice was acknowledged as Frederick's
legal wife, and his son Henry as king of the Romans. Rome
and the patrimonium were restored to the pope, and Spoleto,
the Romagna, and Ancona were recognized as a part of the
empire.
The peace was ratified by one of the most solemn con-
gresses of the Middle Ages. Absolved from the ban, and
after eighteen years of conflict, the emperor met the pope in
front of St. Mark's, July 24, 1177. A vast multitude filled
the public square. The pope in his pontifical dress sitting
upon a throne in front of the portal of the cathedral must
have had mingled with his feelings of satisfaction reminis-
cences of his painful fortunes since the time he was elected
to the tiara. Cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and other dig-
nitaries occupied lower seats according to their rank.
The emperor, on arriving in the magnificent gondola of
the doge, with a train of prelates and nobles, was received
by a procession of priests with banners and crosses, and the
shouts of the people. He slowly proceeded to the cathedral.
Overcome with feelings of reverence for the venerable pope,
he cast off his mantle, bowed, and fell at his feet. 2 Alex-
ander, in tears, raised him up, 3 and gave him the kiss of
1 For the text see Mirbt, Quellen, 121-124. The chief authorities for the
Peace of Venice are Alexander's Letters to Roger, archbishop of York, in
Migne, 200, 1150 sqq. ; and Mansi, XXII. 180 sqq. ; the Chronicon of Ro-
muald., archbishop of Salerno and commissioner from Sicily, in Muratori,
Scrip. Her. Ital. VII. Mathews, pp. 99-105, also gives the text.
2 Vita Alex. : " prostravit se in terram." Chron. Romualdi (Muratori,
VII. 231) : " totum se extenso corpore prostravit."
3 Romuald. : " quern Alexander papa cum lacrymis benigne elevans,"
116 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
peace and his benediction. Thousands of voices responded
by singing the Te Deum. 1
Then the emperor, taking the hand of the pope, walked
with him and the doge into the church, made rich offerings
at the altar, bent his knees, and received again the apostolic
benediction.
On the next day (the 25th), being the feast of St. James,
the pope, at the emperor's request, celebrated high mass, and
preached a sermon which he ordered the patriarch of Aquileia
to translate at once into German. The emperor accom-
panied him from the altar to the door, and paid him the
customary homage of holding the stirrup. 2 He offered to
conduct his palfrey by the bridle across the piazza to the
bark ; but the pope dispensed with this menial service of a
groom, taking the will for the deed, and gave him again his
benediction.
This is the authentic account of contemporary writers and
eye-witnesses. They make no mention of the story that the
emperor said to the pope, " I do this homage to Peter, not
to thee," and that the pope quickly replied, " To Peter and
to me."
The hierarchical imagination has represented this interview
as a second Canossa. In Venetian pictures the pope is seen
seated on a throne, and planting his foot on the neck of the
prostrate emperor, with the words of Ps. 91 : 13 :
1 Romuald. : " moxque a Teutonicis Te Deum laudamus est excelsa voce
cantatum." Vita Alex.: " Tune repleti sunt omnes gaudio etprce nimia
ItKtitia vox conclamantium in Te Deum laudamus insonuit usque ad st'dera."
Alexander writes to Roger of York: "innumera multitudine virorum et
mulierum prcesente, alta voce reddente gratias et laudes Altissimo."
2 Alexander ad Rogerum (Migne, 200, 1131) : " Cum ascenderemus pala-
fredum nostrum ibi paratum, stapham tenuit, et omnem honorem et reveren-
tiam nobis exhibuit, quam prcedecessores ejus nostris consueverunt antecessori-
&MS." It is stated by Godfrey of Viterbo, an attendant of the emperor, that
the old pope, through the pressure of the crowd, was thrown from his horse,
and that the emperor assisted him to remount. Pertz, Archiv, IV. 363,
quoted by Milman, bk. VIII. ch. IX.
30. THE PEACE OF VENICE. 117
" Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder :
The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet." 1
There is as much difference between the scenes of Venice
and Canossa as there is between the characters of Barbarossa
and Henry IV. Barbarossa was far superior, morally as well
as intellectually, to his Salian predecessor, and commanded
the respect of his enemies, even in his defeat. He maintained
his dignity and honorably kept his word.
Delegates and letters were sent to all parts of Christendom
with the glad tidings of peace. The emperor left Venice
toward the end of September for Germany by a roundabout
way, and the pope for Anagni on the 15th of October. After
an exile of ten years, Alexander made a triumphal entry into
Rome, March 12, 1178.
He convened, according to previous agreement with the
emperor, a synod to ratify the pacification of Christendom,
and to remove certain evils which had multiplied during the
schism. The Third Lateran or the Eleventh (Ecumenical
Council was held in the Constantinian Basilica at Rome
during Lent, 1179. It numbered about three hundred bish-
ops, besides many abbots and other dignitaries, 2 and exhibited
the Roman hierarchy in its glory, though it was eclipsed
afterwards by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. The
details of the transactions are unknown, except twenty-
seven chapters which were adopted in the third and last
session.
The council, in order to prevent rival elections, placed
1 " Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis" etc. This and other stories
of the fourteenth century are irreconcilable with contemporary records and
are given up by nearly all modern historians. They may have partly origi-
nated in the fresco paintings of Spinello described by Lord Lindsay, History
of Christian Art, II. 315. Milman, IV. 435 (Am. ed.), says, " As poetry has
so often become, here painting for once became history." Comp. Reuter,
III. 758.
2 The lists are defective, and the contemporary records vary between
287, 300, 396 bishops, and 1000 members in all. See Mansi, XXII. 213 sqq. ;
Hefele, V. 711; Reuter, III. 418 sqq.
118 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
the election of popes exclusively in the hands of cardinals,
to be decided by a majority of two-thirds, and threatened with
excommunication and deposition any one who should dare
to accept an election by a smaller number of votes. 1 The
ordinations of the anti-popes (Octavian, Guido, and John of
Struma) were declared invalid. No one was to be elected
bishop who was not at least thirty years of age and of legiti-
mate birth. To check the extravagance of prelates on their
visitation journeys, the archbishops were limited to forty or
fifty horses on those occasions, the cardinals to twenty-five,
the bishops to twenty or thirty, the archdeacons to five or
seven. Ordained clergymen must dismiss their concubines,
or forfeit their benefices. Unnatural licentiousness was to be
punished by expulsion from the priesthood and confinement
in a convent. The council prepared the way for a crusade
against the heretics in the South of France, and promised to
those who should engage in it the same plenary indulgence
for two years as had been granted to the crusaders against
the Moslems.
Soon after the synod, Alexander was again driven into
exile by the Roman republic. He died at Civita Castellana,
Aug. 30, 1181, having reigned longer than any pope before
or after him, except Sylvester I., 314-335, Adrian I., 772-
795, Pius VII., 1800-1823, Pius IX., 1846-1878, and Leo
XIII., 1878-1903. When Alexander's remains were being
carried to Rome for burial, the populace insulted his memory
by pelting the coffin with stones and mud. 2 Alexander had
with signal constancy and devotion to the Gregorian prin-
1 " Hie Eomanus Pontifex habeatur, qui a duabus partibus fuerit electus et
receptus. Si quis autem de tertice partis nominatione confisus . . . sibi women
Episcopi usurpaverit : tarn ipse, quam qui eum recepuerint, excommunicationi
subjaceant et totius sacri ordinis privatione mulctentur," etc. Mansi, XXII.
217.
2 Renter, III. 495-499. A similar insult was offered by the Roman popu-
lace to Pius IX. when his coffin was transported in the night from the Vatican
to its last resting-place in the basilica of S. Lorenzo. He, too, spent some
time in exile after the proclamation of the Roman republic in 1849.
30. THE PEACE OF VENICE. 119
ciples maintained the conflict with Barbarossa. He supported
Thomas a Becket in his memorable conflict with Henry II.
In 1181 he laid the interdict upon Scotland because of the
refusal of its king, William, to acknowledge the canonical
election of John to the see of St. Andrews. Upon Louis
VII. of France he conferred the Red Rose for the support
he had received from that sovereign in the days of his early
exile. He presided over the Third Lateral! Council and
prepared the way for the crusade against the Cathari and
Albigenses.
His aged and feeble successor, Lucius III., was elected,
Sept. 1, 1181, by the cardinals alone. The Romans, deprived
of their former share in the election, treated him with bar-
barous cruelty; they captured twenty or twenty-six of his
partisans at Tusculum, blinded them, except one, crowned
them with paper mitres inscribed with the names of cardi-
nals, mounted them on asses, and forced the priest whom
they had spared to lead them in this condition to " Lucius,
the wicked simoniac." He died in exile at Verona where
he held an important synod.
It is a remarkable fact that some of the greatest popes
as Gregory VII., Urban II., Innocent II., Eugene III.,
Adrian IV., Alexander III., and three of his successors
could not secure the loyalty of their own subjects, and were
besieged in Rome or compelled to flee. Adrian IV. said to
his countryman and friend, John of Salisbury, " Rome is not
the mother, but the stepmother of the Churches." The
Romans were always fluctuating between memories of the
old republic and memories of the empire ; now setting up
a consul, a senator, a tribune ; now Avelcoming the German
emperor as the true Augustus Caesar ; now loyal to the pope,
now driving him into exile, and ever selling themselves to the
highest bidder. The papal court was very consistent in its
principles and aims, but as to the choice of means for its end
it was subject to the same charge of avarice and venality,
120 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
whether at Rome or in exile. Even Thomas Becket, the
stanchest adherent of Alexander III., indignantly rebuked
the cardinals for their love of gold.
Emperor Frederick survived his great rival nearly ten
years, and died by drowning in a little river of Asia Minor,
1190, while marching on the third crusade.
Barbarossa was a man of middle size, bright countenance,
fair complexion, yellow hair and reddish beard, a kind friend
and placable enemy, strictly just, though often too severe,
liberal in almsgiving, attentive to his religious duties, happy
in his second marriage, of the noblest type of mediaeval chiv-
alry, the greatest sovereign of the twelfth century, a hero in
fact and a hero in romance. 1 He came into Italy with the
sword of Germany in one hand and the Justinian code in
the other, but failed in subduing the political independence
of the Lombard cities, and in his contest with the spiritual
power of Alexander. The German imagination has cherished
his memory in song and story, placing him next in rank to
Charles the Great among the Roman emperors, exaggerating
his virtues, condoning his faults, which were those of his age,
and hoping for his return to restore the unity and power of
Germany.
31. Thomas Becket and Henry II. of England.
For the extensive Becket literature, see KOBERTSON, in " The Contemporary
Review," 1866, I. (Jan.) 270-278, andULYSSE CHEVALIER, in his Repertoire
des sources historiques du Moyen Age (Paris, 1886), s. v. "Thomas," fol.
2207-2209.
I. SOURCES :
* Materials for the History of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Edited by JAMES CRAIGIE ROBERTSON (Canon of Canterbury, d. 1882)
and J. BRIGSTOCKE SHEPPARD, LL.D. London, 1875-1885, 7 vols. This
magnificent work is part of a series of Berum Britannic. Medii Aevi
Scriptores, or " Chronicles and Memorials of Great, Britain and Ire-
1 Rahewin, in his Gesta Friderici, IV. 86, gives an animated descrip-
tion of Frederick's appearance, habits, dress, achievements, etc. He calls him
the best of emperors.
31. THOMAS BECKET AND HENRY II. 121
land during the Middle Ages," published under direction of the Master of
the Rolls and popularly known as the " Rolls Series." It embraces all
the important contemporary materials for the history of Thomas.
Vols. I.-IV. contain the contemporary Vitce (by William of Canter-
bury, Benedict of Peterborough, Edward Grim, Roger of Pontigny,
William Fitz-Stephen, John of Salisbury, Alan of Tewkesbury, and Her-
bert of Bosham, etc.) ; vols. V.-VII., the Epistolce, i.e. the whole
correspondence relating to Thomas.
This collection is much more accurate, complete, and better arranged
(especially in the Epistles) than the older collection of DR. GILES (Sanctus
Thomas Cantuariensis, London, 1845-1846, 8 vols., reprinted in Migne's
Patrologia, Tom. 190), and the Quadrilogus or Historia Quadripartita
(Lives by four contemporary writers, composed by order of Pope Greg-
ory XL, first published, 1495, then by L. Christian Lupus or Wolf, Brus-
sels, 1682, and Venice, 1728).
Thdmas Saga Erkibyskups. A Life of Archb. Th. Becketin Icelandic, with
Engl. transl., notes, and glossary, ed. by Eirikr Magnusson. London,
1875, and 1883, 2 vols. Part of the "Chronicles and Memorials,"
above quoted.
GARNIER of Pont Sainte-Maxence : La Vie de St. Thomas le martir. A
metrical life, in old French, written between 1172 and 1174, published
by Hippeau, and more recently by Professor Bekker, Berlin, 1844, and
Paris, 1859.
The Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Becket by ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.
Ed. by W. H. Black. London, 1845 (pp. 141). A biography in Alex-
andrine verse, written in the thirteenth century.
II. MODERN WORKS :
RICHARD HURRELL FROUDE ( one of the originators of the Oxford Anglo-
Catholic movement, d. 1836) : Eemains. London, 1838, 4 vols. The
second vol., part II., contains a history of the contest between Thomas
a Becket and Henry II., in vindication of the former. He was assisted
by J. H. (late Cardinal) Newman.
A. F. OZANAM : Deux Chanceliers d' Angleterre, Bacon de Verulam et Saint
Thomas de Cantorbery. Paris, 1836.
J. A. GILES : The Life and Letters of Thomas a Becket. London, 1846,
2 vols.
F. J. B0ss (Rom. Cath.) : Der heil. Thomas und sein Kampf fur die
Freiheit der Kirche. Mainz, 1856.
JOHN MORRIS (Rom. Cath. Canon of Northampton) : The Life and Martyr-
dom of Saint Thomas Becket. London, 1859.
* JAMES CRAIGIE ROBERTSON : Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. London,
1859. Accurate, but unfavorable to Becket.
*Eow. A. FREEMAN: St. Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers. A
masterly article in the " National Review " for April, 1860, reprinted in
122 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
his " Historical Essays," London, 1871, pp. 99-114. Comp. the sum-
mary in his History of the Norman Conquest, V. 660 sqq., and his arti-
cles against Froude, noticed below.
* JAMES ANTHONY FROCDE : Life and Times of Thomas Becket. First pub-
lished in "The Nineteenth Century" for 1877, then in book form,
London and New York, 1878 (pp. 150). Against the Roman and Anglo-
Catholic overestimate of St. Thomas. This book is written in brilliant
style, but takes a very unfavorable view of Becket (opposite to that of
his elder brother, R. H. Froude), and led to a somewhat personal con-
troversy with PROFESSOR FREEMAN, who charged Froude with habitual
inaccuracy, unfairness, and hostility to the English Church, in "The
Contemporary Review" for 1878 (March, April, June, and September).
Froude defended himself in "The Nineteenth Century " for April, 1879,
pp. 618-637, to which Freeman replied in Last Words on Mr. Froude, in
" The Contemporary Review " for May, 1879, pp. 214-236.
* R. A. THOMPSON: Thomas Becket, Martyr, London, 1889. A. S. HUILLIER:
St. Thomas de Cantorbery, 2 vols., Paris, 1892.
* EDWIN A. ABBOTT : St. Thomas of Canterbury. His Death and Miracles,
2 vols., London, 1888. This work grew out of studies in preparation of a
critical commentary of the Four Gospels. It takes the early narratives
of Thomas a Beckefc, sets them side by side, and seeks to show which are
to be accepted upon the basis of disagreements in regard to event or ver-
bal expression. It also presents the details in which Dean Stanley and
Tennyson are alleged to have been misled. The criticism is able, stimu-
lating, and marked by self-confidence in determining what events really
did occur, and how much is to be discarded as unhistoric. The discussion
has all the merits and demerits of the strict critical method.
III. Becket is more or less fully treated by MILMAN : Latin Christian-
ity, bk. VIII. ch. VIII. DEAN STANLEY: Historical Memorials of Can-
terbury, Am. ed., 1889. REDTER : Alexander III., I. 237 sqq., 530 sqq.
DEAN HOOK : Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, II. 354-508.
GREENWOOD : Cathedra Petri, bk. XII. ch. VII. WILLIAM STUBBS : The
Constitutional Hist, of England, 6th ed., 3 vols., Oxford, 1897, and
Select Charters and Other Illustrations of the English Constit. Hist.,
8th ed., Oxford, 1900. GEE and HARDY: Documents Illustrative of
Engl. Ch. Hist., London, 1896. F. W. MAITLAND : Horn. Canon
Law in the Ch. of England, London, 1898, 134-147. W. R. W.
STEPHENS : The English Church (1066-1272), London, 1901, 157-190.
The Histories of LINGARD, GREEN, etc.
LOBD TENNYSON has made Becket the subject of a historical drama, 1884.
During the pontificate of Alexander III., the papal hierar-
chy achieved an earlier and greater triumph over the king
of England than over the emperor of Germany.
Thomas Becket, or Thomas a Becket, or St. Thomas of
31. THOMAS BECKET AND HENRY II. 123
Canterbury, is, next to Alexander and Barbarossa, the most
prominent historical figure in the twelfth century, and fills
a chapter of thrilling interest in the history of England.
He resumed the conflict of Anselm with the crown, and by
his martyrdom became the most popular saint of the later
Middle Ages.
The materials for his history, from his birth in London to
his murder in his own cathedral by four knights of the royal
household, are abundant. We have six or seven contempo-
rary biographies, besides fragments, legends, and " Passions,"
state papers, private letters, and a correspondence extending
over the whole Latin Church. But his life is surrounded
by a mist of romantic legends and theological controversies.
He had extravagant admirers, like Herbert of Bosham, and
fierce opponents, like Gilbert Foliot, in his own day ; and
modern biographers still differ in the estimate of his charac-
ter, according to their creed and their views on the question of
Church and State, some regarding him as a hero and a saint,
others as a hypocrite and a traitor. We must judge him
from the standpoint of the twelfth century.
Becket was born in London, Dec. 21, 1118, during the
reign of Henry I. He was the son of Gilbert Becket, a mer-
chant in Cheapside, originally from Rouen, and of Matilda
or Rose, a native of Caen in Normandy. 1
In the later legend his father appears as a gallant crusader
and his mother as a Saracen princess, who met in the East
and fell in love with each other. Matilda helped Gilbert to
escape from captivity, and then followed him alone to Eng-
land. Knowing only two English words, " London " and
1 The Norman descent of Becket rests on contemporary testimony, and
is accepted by Giles, Lingard, Robertson, Milman, Hook, Freeman, Reuter,
Hefele. The commercial advantages of London attracted emigrants from
Normandy. Lord Lyttleton, Thierry, Campbell, and J. A. Froude make
Becket a Saxon, but without authority. Becket is a surname, and may be
Norman as well as Saxon. The prefix a seems to be of later date, and to
have its origin (according to Robertson and Hook) in vulgar colloquial usage.
124 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
" Gilbert," she wandered through the streets of the city, till
at last she found her beloved in Cheapside as by a miracle,
was baptized and married to him in St. Paul's with great
splendor. She had dreams of the future greatness and eleva-
tion of her infant son to the see of Canterbury.
Becket was educated at Merton Abbey in Surrey and in
the schools of London. At a later period he attended the
universities of Paris, Bologna, and Auxerre, and studied
there chiefly civil and canon law, without attaining to spe-
cial eminence in learning. He was not a scholar, but a states-
man and an ecclesiastic.
He made his mark in the world and the Church by the
magnetism of his personality. He was very handsome, of
tall, commanding presence, accomplished, brilliant, affable,
cheerful in discourse, ready and eloquent in debate, fond of
hunting and hawking, and a proficient in all the sports of a
mediaeval cavalier. He could storm the strongest castle and
unhorse the stoutest knight.
Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, 1139-1161, took him
into his service, 1142 ; sent him to Bologna, where Gratian
then taught canon law; employed him in delicate missions
with the papal court; made him archdeacon (1154), and be-
stowed upon him other profitable benefices, as the provostship
of Beverly, a number of churches, and several prebends.
When charged, as archbishop, with ingratitude to the king,
who had raised him from " poverty," he proudly referred to
this accumulation of preferments, and made no attempt to
abolish the crying evil of plurality, which continued till the
Reformation. Many a prosperous ecclesiastic regarded his
parishes simply as sources of income, and discharged the
duties by proxy through ignorant and ill-paid priests.
King Henry II., 1154-1189, in the second year of his
reign, raised Becket, then only thirty-seven years of age, at
Theobald's instance, to the chancellorship of England. The
chancellor was the highest civil dignitary, and held the cus-
31. THOMAS BECKET AND HENRY II. 125
tody of nearly all the royal grants and favors, including va-
cant bishoprics, abbacies, chaplaincies, and other ecclesiastical
benefices.
Henry, the first of the proud Plantagenets, was an able,
stirring, and energetic monarch. He kept on his feet from
morning till evening, and rarely sat down. He introduced
a reign of law and severe justice after the lawless violence
and anarchy which had disturbed the reign of the unfor-
tunate Stephen. 1 But he was passionate, vindictive, and
licentious. He had frequent fits of rage, during which he
behaved like a madman. He was the most powerful sover-
eign in Western Europe. His continental dominions were
more extensive than those of the king of France, and em-
braced Maine and Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine, reaching
from Flanders to the foot of the Pyrenees. He afterwards
(1171) added Ireland by conquest, with the authority of
Popes Adrian IV. and Alexander III. His marriage to
Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who had been divorced for in-
fidelity from King Louis VII. of France, enriched his realm,
but involved him in protracted wars with France and in do-
mestic troubles. Eleanor was jealous of her rivals, 2 incited
her sons, Geoffrey and Richard, to rebel against their father,
was imprisoned in 1173, and released after Henry's death in
.! Tennyson describes Stephen's reign as
" A reign which was no reign, when none could sit
By his own hearth in peace; when murder common
As nature's death, like Egypt's plague, had filled
All things with blood."
2 The tradition ran that she poisoned his favorite concubine, Eosamund
de Clifford, who, with her labyrinthine bower, figures largely in the literature
of romance, also in Tennyson's Becket. On her tomb were inscribed the
lines :
" Hicjacet in tumba ROSA MUNDI, non ROSA MUNDA,
Non redolet, sed olet, quce redolere solet."
" Here Rose the graced, not Rose the chaste, reposes ;
The smell that rises is no smell of roses."
126 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
1189 by his successor, Richard I., Coeur de Lion, who made
her regent on his departure for the Holy Land. She after-
wards retired to the abbey of Fontevrault, and died about
1203.
Becket occupied the chancellorship for seven years (1155-
1162). He aided the king in the restoration of order and
peace. He improved the administration of justice. He was
vigorous and impartial, and preferred the interests of the
crown to those of the clergy, yet without being hostile to the
Church. He was thoroughly loyal to the king, and served
him as faithfully as he had served Theobald, and as he after-
wards served the pope. Thorough devotion to official duty
characterized him in all the stations of his career
He gave to his high office a prominence and splendor
which it never had before. He was as magnificent and
omnipotent as Wolsey under Henry VIII. He was king in
fact, though not in name, and acted as regent during Henry's
frequent absences on the Continent. He dressed after the
best fashion, surrounded himself with a brilliant retinue of
a hundred and forty knights, exercised a prodigal hospitality,
and spent enormous sums upon his household and public
festivities, using in part the income of his various ecclesias-
tical benefices, which he retained without a scruple. He pre-
sided at royal banquets in Westminster Hall. His tables
were adorned with vessels of gold, with the most delicate and
sumptuous food, and with wine of the choicest vintage. He
superintended the training of English and foreign nobles,
and of the young Prince Henry. He was the favorite of the
king, the army, the nobility, the clergy, and the people.
The chancellor negotiated in person a matrimonial alliance
(three years before it was consummated) between the heir
of the crown (then a boy of seven years) and a daughter of
the king of France (a little lady of three). He took with
him on that mission two hundred knights, priests, standard-
bearers, all festively arrayed in new attire, twenty-four
31. THOMAS BECKET AND HENRY II. 127
changes of raiment, all kinds of dogs and birds for field
sports, eight wagons, each drawn by five horses, each horse
in charge of a stout young man dressed in a new tunic.
Coffers and chests contained the chancellor's money and
presents. One horse, which preceded all the rest, carried
the holy vessels of his chapel, the holy books, and the orna-
ments of the altar. The Frenchmen, seeing this train, ex-
claimed, "How wonderful must be the king of England,
whose chancellor travels in such state! " In Paris he freely
distributed his gold and silver plate and changes of raiment,
to one a robe, to another a furred cloak, to a third a
pelisse, to a fourth a war-horse. He gained his object and
universal popularity.
When, notwithstanding his efforts to maintain peace, war
broke out between France and England, the chancellor was
the bravest warrior at the head of seven hundred knights,
whom he had enlisted at his own expense, and he offered
to lead the storming party at the siege of Toulouse, where
King Louis was shut up ; but the scruples of Henry pre-
vented him from offering violence to the king of France.
He afterwards took three castles which were deemed impreg-
nable, and returned triumphant to England. One of his
eulogists, Edward Grim, reports to his credit : " Who can
recount the carnage, the desolation, which he made at the
head of a strong body of soldiers ? He attacked castles,
razed towns and cities to the ground, burned down houses
and farms without a touch of pity, and never showed the
slightest mercy to any one who rose in insurrection against
his master's authority." Such cruelty was quite compatible
with medieval conceptions of piety and charity, as the his-
tory of the crusades shows.
Becket was made for the court and the camp. Yet, though
his life was purely secular, it was not immoral. He joined the
king in his diversions, but not in his debaucheries. Being
in deacon's orders, he was debarred from marriage, but pre-
128 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
served his chastity at a profligate court. This point is espe-
cially mentioned to his credit; for chastity was a rare virtue
in the Middle Ages.
All together, his public life as chancellor was honorable
and brilliant, and secures him a place among the distin-
guished statesmen of England. But a still more important
career awaited him. 1
32. The Archbishop and the King.
Compare 22-24 (pp. 80 sqq.).
A year after the death of Theobald, April 18, 1161, Becket
was appointed by the king archbishop of Canterbury. He
accepted reluctantly, and warned the king, with a smile, that
he would lose a servant and a friend. 2 The learned and
energetic Bishop Gilbert Foliot of Hereford (afterwards of
London) remarked sarcastically, perhaps from disappointed
ambition, that " the king had wrought a miracle in turning
a layman into an archbishop, and a soldier into a saint."
Becket was ordained priest on the Saturday after Pente-
cost, and consecrated archbishop on the following day with
great magnificence in Westminster Abbey, June 3, 1162.
His first act was to appoint the Sunday after Whitsunday
as a festival of the Holy Trinity in the Church of England.
He acknowledged Alexander III. as the rightful pope, and
received from him the pallium through his friend, John of
Salisbury.
He was the first native Englishman who occupied the seat
of the primate since the Norman Conquest ; for Lanfranc and
1 Freeman, who exalts him as chancellor, thinks that he failed as arch-
bishop ; but his martyrdom was his greatest triumph.
8 Tennyson ingeniously introduces his drama with a game of chess between
Henry and Becket, during which the king informs the chancellor of the fatal
illness of Theobald, and speaks of the need of a mightier successor, who
would punish guilty clerks ; while the chancellor quietly moves his bishop
and checkmates the king ; whereupon Henry kicks over the board, saying :
" Why, there then down go bishop and king together."
32. THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE KING. 129
Anselm were Italians; Ralph of Escures, William of Corbeuil,
and Theobald of Bee were Normans or Frenchmen. There
is, however, no ground for the misleading theory of Thierry
that Becket asserted the cause of the Saxon against the
Norman. His contest with the king was not a contest
between two nationalities, but between Church and State.
He took the same position on this question as his Norman
predecessors, only with more zeal and energy. He was a
thorough Englishman. The two nations had at that time, by
intermarriage, social and commercial intercourse, pretty well
coalesced, at least among the middle classes, to which he
belonged. 1
With the change of office, Becket underwent a radical and
almost sudden transformation. The foremost champion of
kingcraft became the foremost champion of priestcraft ; the
most devoted friend of the king, his most dangerous rival
and enemy; the brilliant chancellor, an austere and squalid
monk. He exchanged the showy court dress for haircloth
infested with vermin, fed on roots, and drank nauseous
water. He daily washed, with proud humility and osten-
tatious charity, the feet of thirteen dirty beggars, and gave
each of them four pieces of silver. He doubled the charities
of Theobald, as Theobald had doubled the charities of his
predecessor. He wandered alone in his cloister, shedding
tears of repentance for past sins, frequently inflicted stripes
on his naked back, and spent much time in prayer and read-
ing of the Scriptures. He successfully strove to realize the
ideal of a mediaeval bishop, which combines the loftiest eccle-
siastical pretensions with personal humility, profuse charity,
and ascetic self-mortification. He was no hypocrite, but his
sanctity, viewed from the biblical and Protestant standpoint,
was artificial and unnatural.
1 " Though of Norman blood, his whole feeling, his whole character is
English, and it is clear that no man looked on him as a stranger." Freeman
(I.e., pp. 101 sq.).
K
130 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
His relation to the king was that of the pope to the
emperor. Yea, we may say, as he had outkinged the king
as chancellor, so he outpoped the pope as archbishop. He
censured the pope for his temporizing policy. He wielded
the spiritual sword against Henry with the same gallantry
with which he had wielded the temporal sword for him.
He took up the cause of Anselm against William Rufus,
and of Gregory VII. against Henry IV., but with this great
difference, that he was not zealous for a moral reformation of
the Church and the clergy, like Hildebrand and Anselm, but
only for the temporal power of the Church and the rights
and immunities of the clergy. He made no attempt to
remove the scandal of pluralities of which he had himself
been guilty as archdeacon and chancellor, and did not rebuke
Henry for his many sins against God, but only for his sins
against the supremacy of the hierarchy.
The new archbishop was summoned by Pope Alexander
III. to a council at Tours in France, and was received with
unusual distinction (May, 1163). The council consisted of
seventeen cardinals, a hundred and twenty-four bishops,
four hundred and fourteen abbots ; the pope presided in
person ; Becket sat at his right, Roger of York at his left.
Arnolf of Lisieux in Normandy preached the opening ser-
mon on the unity and freedom of the Church, which were
the burning questions of the day. The council unanimously
acknowledged the claims of Alexander, asserted the rights
and privileges of the clergy, and severely condemned all
encroachments on the property of the Church.
This was the point which kindled the controversy between
the sceptre and the crozier in England. The dignity of the
crown was the sole aim of the king ; the dignity of the
Church was the sole aim of the archbishop. The first rup-
ture occurred over the question of secular taxation.
Henry determined to transfer the customary payment of
two shillings on every hide of land to his own exchequer.
32. THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE KING. 131
Becket opposed the enrolment of the decree on the ground
that the tax was voluntary, not of right. Henry protested,
in a fit of passion, " By the eyes of God, it shall be enrolled I "
Becket replied, " By the eyes of God, by which you swear,
it shall never be levied on my lands while I live ! "
Another cause of dispute was the jurisdiction of the eccle-
siastical courts. The king demanded that all clerics accused
of gross misdemeanors be tried by the civil court. A cer-
tain clerk, Philip of Broi, had been acquitted of murder in
the bishop's court. The king was indignant, but Philip re-
fused to plead in the civil court. The matter was taken up
by the archbishop, but a light sentence imposed.
The king summoned a Parliament at Westminster, and
demanded in the name of equal justice, and in accordance
with " ancient customs " (of the Norman kings), that all
clerks accused of heinous crimes should be immediately de-
graded, and be dealt with according to law, instead of being
shielded by their office. This was contrary to the right of
the priest to be tried only in the court of his bishop, where
flagellation, imprisonment, and degradation might be awarded,
but not capital punishment.
Becket and the bishops agreed that the king's demand was
an infringement of the canon law and argued the case from
Scripture. Joab, and Abiathar the priest, were guilty of
putting Adonijah to death. Joab was punished, but the
priest suffered no other punishment than deposition from
office. Nahum 1:9 was quoted as against a double tribunal
for clerks. According to the Septuagint version, this pas-
sage declares that God does not give two judgments in the
same case.
The king hastily broke up the Parliament, deprived Becket
of the custody of the royal castles, and of the education of
his son. The bishops advised the archbishop to yield ; at
first he refused, though an angel from heaven should counsel
such weakness ; but at last he made a concession to the king
132 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
at Woodstock, and promised to obey in good faith the cus-
toms of the realm. He yielded at the persuasion of the
pope's almoner, Philip de Eleeomosyna, who was bribed by
English gold. 1
The king summoned a great council of the realm to Clar-
endon, a royal palace a few miles from Salisbury, for the
ratification of the concession (Jan. 25, 1164). The two
archbishops, twelve bishops, and thirty-nine lay-barons were
present. Sixteen famous statutes were enacted, under the
name of The Clarendon Constitutions, as laws of England.
They are as follows : 2
THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.
I. Of the advowson and presentation (de advocatione et presentatione) to
churches : if any dispute shall arise between laics, or between clerks and
laics, or between clerks, let it be tried and decided in the court of our lord
the king.
II. Churches in the king's fee (de feudo domini Eegis) shall not be given
in perpetuity without his consent and license.
III. Clerks accused of any crime shall be summoned by the king's jus-
ticiaries into the king's court to answer there for whatever the king's court
shall determine they ought to answer there ; and in the ecclesiastical court,
for whatever it shall be determined that they ought to answer there ; yet so
that the king's justiciaries shall send into the court of holy Church to see in
what way the matter shall there be handled ; and if the clerk shall confess
or be convicted, the Church for the future shall not protect him. 8
1 Tennyson makes Becket say :
" This Almoner hath tasted Henry's gold.
The cardinals have fingered Henry's gold.
And Rome is venal even to rottenness."
2 They are found in Matthew Paris, ad ann. 1164 ; Mansi, XXL 1187 ;
Wilkins, Concilia M. Britannice, vol. I. ; Gieseler, II. 89 sqq. (Am. ed.
II. 289 sq.) ; Reuter, I. 371-375, 673-577 ; Hefele-Knopfler, V. 623-628 (in
German) ; Stubbs, 135-140 (in Latin) ; Gee and Hardy, 68-73.
8 Maitland, p. 135 sqq., has thrown light upon this article, and interprets
it to mean that a clerk is first to be accused and plead in the temporal court,
then to be taken to the ecclesiastical court, and if found guilty and degraded
he is to be returned to the temporal court and receive sentence to the lay-
man's punishment. This procedure was for civil crimes, such as robbery,
rape, murder.
32. THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE KING. 133
IV. No archbishop, bishop, or other exalted person shall leave the king-
dom without the king's license ; and if they wish to leave it, the king shall
be empowered, if he pleases, to take security from them, that they will do no
harm to the king or kingdom, either in going or remaining, or in returning.
V. Persons excommunicated are not to give bail, ad remanentiam, nor to
make oath, but only to give bail and pledge that they will stand by the judg-
ment of the Church where they are absolved.
VI. Laics shall not be accused, save by certain and legal accusers and
witnesses in presence of the bishop, so that the archdeacon may not lose his
rights, or anything which accrues to him therefrom. And if those who are
arraigned are such that no one is willing or dares to accuse them, the sheriff,
on demand from the bishop, shall cause twelve loyal men of the village to
swear before the bishop that they will declare the truth in that matter accord-
ing to their conscience.
VII. No one who holds of the king in chief, nor any of his domestic ser-
vants, shall be excommunicated, nor his lands be put under an interdict,
until the king shall be consulted, if he is in the kingdom ; or, if he is abroad,
his justiciary, that he may do what is right in that matter, and so that what-
ever belongs to the king's court may therein be settled, and the same on the
other hand of the ecclesiastical court.
VIII. Appeals, if they arise, must be made from the archdeacon to the
bishop, and from the bishop to the archbishop ; and if the archbishop shall
fail in administering justice, the parties shall come before our lord the king,
that by his precept the controversy may be terminated in the archbishop's
court, so that it may not proceed further without the consent of our lord the
king.
IX. If a dispute shall arise between a clerk and a laic, or between a laic
and a clerk, about a tenement, which the clerk wishes to claim as eleemosy-
nary, but the laic claims as lay fee, it shall be settled by the declaration of
twelve qualified men, through the agency of the king's capital judiciary,
whether the tenement is eleemosynary or lay fee, in presence of the king's
judiciaries. And if it shall be declared that it is eleemosynary, it shall be
pleaded in the ecclesiastical court ; but, if a lay fee, unless both shall claim
the tenement of the same bishop or baron, it shall be pleaded in the king's
court ; but if both shall claim of that fee from the same bishop or baron, it
shall be pleaded in his court, yet so that the same declaration above-named
shall not deprive of seizing him who before was seized, until he shall be
divested by the pleadings.
X. If any man belonging to a city, castle, borough, or king's royal manor
shall be summoned by the archdeacon or bishop to answer for a crime, and
shall not comply with the summons, it shall be lawful to place him under an
interdict, but not to excommunicate him, until the king's principal officer of
that place be informed thereof, that he may justify his appearing to the sum-
mons ; and if the king's officer shall fail in that matter, he shall be at the
king's mercy, and the bishop shall forthwith coerce the party accused with
ecclesiastical discipline.
XI. The archbishops, bishops, and all other persons of the kingdom, who
134 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
hold of the king in chief, shall hold their possessions of the king as barony,
and answer for the same to the king's justiciaries and officers, and follow and
observe all the king's customs and rectitudes ; and be bound to be present, in
the judgment of the king's court with the barons, like other barons, until the
judgment proceeds to mutilation or death.
XII. When an archbishopric, bishopric, abbacy, or priory on the king's
domain shall be vacant, it shall be in his hand, and he shall receive from it
all the revenues and proceeds, as of his domains. And when the time shall
come for providing for that church, our lord the king shall recommend the
best persons to that church, and the election shall be made in the king's
chapel, with the king's consent, and the advice of the persons of the kingdom
whom he shall have summoned for that purpose. And the person elected
shall there do homage and fealty to our lord the king, as to his liege lord, of
life and limb, and of his earthly honors saving his orders, before he is conse-
crated.
XIII. If any of the king's nobles shall have refused to render justice to
an archbishop or bishop or archdeacon, for himself or any of his men, our
lord the king shall justice them. And if by chance any one shall have
deforced our lord the king of his rights, the archbishops, bishops, and arch-
deacons shall justice him that he may render satisfaction to the king.
XIV. The chattels of those who are in forfeiture to the king shall not be
detained by the Church or the cemetery, in opposition to the king's justice,
for they belong to the king, whether they are found in the Church or without.
XV. Pleas for debts which are due, whether with the interposition of a
pledge of faith or not, belong to the king's court.
XVI. The sons of rustics shall not be ordained without the consent of the
lord, in whose land they are known to have been born.
These Constitutions were drawn up in the spirit and lan-
guage of feudalism, under the inspiration of the king, by
Archbishop Roger of York, Bishop Foliot of London (the
chief enemies of Becket), Bishop Joceline of Salisbury,
Richard de Luci (the king's chief judiciary), and Joceline
of Baliol. They are restrictions on the immunities of the
clergy; the last is an invasion of the rights of the people,
but is based on the canonical exclusion of slaves from the
clerical order without the consent of their masters. They
subject the clergy equally with the laity to the crown and
the laws of the land. They reduce the Church to an impe-
rium in imperio, instead f recognizing her as a distinct and
independent imperium. They formulate in the shape of legal
enactments certain " ancient customs " (consuetudines) which
32. THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE KING. 135
date from the time of William the Conqueror, and were
conceded by Lanfranc ; but they infringe- at many points on
the ancient privileges of the Church, and are inconsistent
with the hierarchical principle of the exemption of the clergy
from temporal jurisdiction. And this was the chief point of
the quarrel between the king and the archbishop.
In the present state of civilization there can be no doubt
that the clergy should obey the same laws and be subject to
the same penalties as the laity. But we must not overlook
the fact that in the Middle Ages the clerical exemption had
a humanitarian as well as a hierarchical feature, and involved
a protest against barbarous punishments by mutilation of the
human body, man being made in the image of God. It pre-
pared the way for a mitigation of the criminal code for the
benefit of the whole people, the laity as well as the clergy.
This explains the large amount of popular sympathy with
the cause of Becket.
Becket gave a qualified assent. On his return to Canter-
bury he changed his mind and imposed upon himself severe
penances, and sought and obtained the pope's absolution from
his oath. But Alexander, hard pressed by Barbarossa and
the anti-pope, and anxious to keep the good will of Henry,
tried to please both parties. He granted, at the request of
Henry, legatine commission over all England to Archbishop
Roger of York, the rival of the primate of Canterbury. He
also afterwards authorized the coronation of Henry's eldest
son by the archbishop of York in the Abbey of Westminster
(June 18, 1170), although such coronation was the exclu-
sive privilege of the archbishop of Canterbury. This aggra-
vated the difficulty with the king, and brought on the final
crisis.
In the meantime the Clarendon Constitutions were carried
out. Clergymen convicted of crime in the king's court were
condemned and punished like laymen.
Becket attempted to flee to the pope, and sailed for the
136 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
Continent, but was brought back by the sailors on account
of adverse winds. This was a violation of the law which
forbade bishops to leave the country without royal per-
mission.
He was summoned before a great council of bishops and
nobles at the royal castle of Northampton in the autumn of
1164, and charged with misconduct in secular affairs while
chancellor and archbishop. But his courage rose with the
danger. He refused to answer, and appealed to the pope.
The council ordered him cited to Rome on the charges of
perjury at Clarendon and of commanding his suffragans to
disregard the Constitutions. The bishops he met with a
haughty refusal when they advised him to resign. He was
to be arrested, but he threatened the peers with excommuni-
cation if they pronounced the sentence. He took the bold
course of making his escape to the Continent in the disguise
of a monk, at midnight, accompanied by two monks and a
servant, and provided with his episcopal pall and seal.
The king seized the revenues of the archbishop, forbade
public prayers for him, and banished him from the kingdom,
ordered the banishment of all his kinsmen and friends, in-
cluding four hundred persons of both sexes, and suspended
the payment of Peter's pence to the pope.
Becket spent fully six years in exile, from October, 1164,
to December, 1170. King Louis of France, an enemy of
Henry and admirer of Becket, received him with distinction
and recommended him to the pope, who, himself in exile,
resided at Sens. Becket met Alexander, laid before him the
Constitutions of Clarendon, and tendered his resignation.
The pope condemned ten as a violation of ecclesiastical privi-
leges, and tolerated six as less evil than the rest. He tenderly
rebuked Becket for his weakness in swearing to them, but
consoled him with the assurance that he had atoned for it
by his sufferings. He restored to him the archiepiscopal
ring, thus ratifying his primacy, promised him his protection,
32. THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE KING. 187
and committed him to the hospitable care of the abbot of
Pontigny, a Cistercian monastery about twelve leagues dis-
tant from Sens. Here Becket lived till 1166, like a stern
monk, on pulse and gruel, slept on a bed of straw, and sub-
mitted at midnight to the flagellation of his chaplain, but
occasionally indulged in better diet, and retained some of his
former magnificence in his surroundings. His sober friend,
John of Salisbury, remonstrated against the profuse expen-
diture.
Becket proceeded to the last extremity of pronouncing,
in the church of Vezelay, on Whitsuntide, 1166, the sentence
of excommunication on all the authors and defenders of the
Constitutions of Clarendon. He spared the king, who then
was dangerously ill, but in a lower tone, half choked with
tears, he threatened him with the vengeance of God, and his
realm with the interdict. He announced the sentence to
the pope and all the clergy of England, saying to the
latter, "Who presumes to doubt that the priests of God
are the fathers and masters of kings, princes, and all the
faithful ? "
The wrath of Henry knew no bounds. He closed the
ports of England against the bearers of the instrument of
excommunication, threatening them with shameful mutila-
tion, hanging, and burning. He procured the expulsion of
Becket from Pontigny, who withdrew to a monastery near
the archiepiscopal city of Sens. He secured through his
ambassadors several concessions from Alexander, who was
then in exile at Benevento. The pope was anxious to retain
the support of the king, and yet he wrote soothing letters to
Becket, assuring him that the concessions were to be only
temporary. Becket answered with indignation, and de-
nounced the papal court for its venality and rapacity.
" Your gold and silver," he wrote to the cardinals, " will
not deliver you in the day of the wrath of the Lord."
The king now determined to use the permission received
138 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
from the pope several years before, but afterwards revoked, 1
and have his son crowned by Roger, archbishop of York. This
humiliating infringement upon the rights of the primate
stirred Becket's blood afresh. He repeated his excommuni-
cation. Like Gregory VII., he applied the words, "Cursed
is he that refraineth his sword from blood," to the spiritual
weapon. He even commanded the bishops of England to lay
the whole kingdom under interdict and to suspend the offices
of religion (except baptism, penance, and extreme unction),
unless the king should give full satisfaction before the feast
of purification, Nov. 2, 1170. 2
These extreme measures were not without effect. Several
bishops began to waver and change from the king's cause to
that of the archbishop. The king himself was alarmed at
the menace of the interdict. The pope pursued his tempo-
rizing policy, and counselled concessions by both parties.
The king and the archbishop suddenly made peace in a
respectful personal interview at Fretteville (Freteval), a
castle between Tours and Chartres, July 22, 1170. Henry
said nothing about the Clarendon Constitutions, but made
the offer that Becket should crown his daughter-in-law (the
daughter of the king of France), and should on that occa-
sion repeat the coronation of his son. Becket laid the blame
on the shoulders of Henry's counsellors, and showed modera-
tion and prudence. The king did not offer the kiss of peace,
nor did the archbishop demand it.
But while Becket was willing to pardon the king, he
1 See the pope's letter to the archbishop of York in the " Materials," vol.
VI. 206 sq., and Robertson's note; also Renter, II. 683 sq. The letter is
not in the Vatican, but in other MSS., and is admitted as genuine by
Jaffe". It was probably written in the beginning of 1170, when Alexander was
hard pressed by Barbarossa in the siege of Rome. See the other letters on
the subject in " Materials," VII. 257, 305 sqq., 399.
2 In 1169 Henry proposed to marry one of his daughters to the young king
of Sicily, and to give a sum of money to the cities of the Lombard League
for the erection of fortifications, provided they would influence Alexander to
depose or transfer Becket. See Stubbs, ed. of Hoveden, II. xci sq.
32. THE ARCHBISHOP AND THE KING. 139
meant to exercise his spiritual authority over his evil coun-
sellors, and especially over the archbishop of York and the
bishops of London and Salisbury. These prelates had re-
cently officiated at the coronation of Henry's son. And it
was this coronation, even more than the original and more
important dispute about the immunity of the clergy, that led
to the catastrophe.
After prolonged negotiations with the papal court and the
king, Becket returned to his long-neglected flock, Dec. 1,
1170. On landing at Sandwich (instead of Dover, where
he was expected), he was surprised by enemies, who searched
his baggage, and demanded that he should withdraw his
excommunication of the bishops who were then at Dover.
He refused. On his way to Canterbury the country clergy
and people met him, cast down their garments, chanting,
"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." He
rode to the cathedral with a vast procession, amid the ringing
of the bells, and preached on the text, " Here we have no
abiding city."
The excommunicated prelates of York, London, and Salis-
bury sought the protection of the king, who was then at a
castle near Bayeux in Normandy. He said: "If all are to
be excommunicated who officiated at my son's coronation, by
the eyes of God, I am equally guilty." One of the prelates
(perhaps Roger of York) remarked, " As long as Thomas
lives, you will never be at peace." Henry broke out into
one of his constitutional fits of passion, and dropped the fatal
words : "A fellow that has eaten my bread, has lifted up his
heel against me; a fellow that I loaded with benefits, dares
insult the king; a fellow that came to court on a lame horse,
with a cloak for a saddle, sits without hindrance on the
throne itself. By the eyes of God, is there none of my
thankless and cowardly courtiers who will deliver me from
the insults of this low-born and turbulent priest ? " With
these words he rushed out of the room.
140 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
33. The Martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Dec. 29, 1170.
On the murder of Becket we have the reports of five eye-witnesses,
Edward Grim (a Saxon monk of Cambridge), William Fitz-Stephen (Becket's
chaplain), John of Salisbury (his faithful friend), William of Canterbury,
and the anonymous author of a Lambeth MS. Two other biographers, Her-
bert of Bosham and Roger of Pontigny, though absent from England at that
time, were on intimate terms with Becket, and took great pains to ascertain
the facts to the minutest details.
Four warlike knights of high birth and large estate, cham-
berlains to the king, 1 Sir Reginald Fitz-Urse (" Son of the
Bear," whom Becket had originally introduced to the court),
Sir William de Tracy (of royal blood), Hugh de Moreville
(judiciary of Northumberland and Cumberland), and Sir
Richard le Bret or Breton (commonly known as Brito 2 ),
eagerly caught at the king's suggestion, and resolved to carry
it out in the spirit of passionate loyalty, at their own risk,
as best they could, by imprisonment, or exile, or, if necessary,
by murder. They seem to have had no premeditated plan
except that of signal vengeance. Without waiting for in-
structions, they at once departed on separate routes for Eng-
land, and met at the castle of Saltvvood, which belonged to
the see of Canterbury, but was then occupied by Randulf of
Broc. They collected a band of about a dozen armed men,
and reached St. Augustine's abbey outside of the walls of
Canterbury, early on the 29th of December, which was a
Tuesday.
On the morning of that fatal day, Becket had forebodings
of his death, and advised the clergy to escape to Sandwich
before daylight. He attended mass in the cathedral, con-
fessed to two monks, and received three scourgings, as
was his custom. At the banquet he drank more freely than
usual, and said to the cupbearer, " He who has much blood
to shed, must drink much." After dinner he retired to his
1 Cubicularii, gentlemen of the bed-chamber.
4 The biographers say he was more tit to be called " the Brute."
33. THE MARTYRDOM OF THOMAS BECKET. 141
private room and sat on his bed, talking to his friends, John
of Salisbury, William Fitz-Stephen, and Edward Grim. He
was then still in full vigor, being in the fifty-third year of
his age, retaining his dignified aspect and the lustre of his
large eyes.
At about four that afternoon, the knights went to the
archbishop's palace, leaving their weapons behind, and con-
cealing their coats of mail by the ordinary cloak and gown.
They demanded from him, in the name of the king, the ab-
solution of the excommunicated bishops and courtiers. He
refused, and referred them to the pope, who alone could ab-
solve them. He declared: " I will never spare a man who vio-
lates the canons of Rome or the rights of the Church. My
spirituals I hold from God and the pope; my temporals, from
the king. Render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's, and
unto God the things that are God's." The knights said, "You
speak in peril of your life." Becket replied: "Come ye to
murder me in my own house ? You cannot be more ready to
kill me than I am to die. You threaten me in vain ; were all
the swords in England hanging over my head, you could not
terrify me from my obedience to God and my lord the pope.
I defy you, and will meet you foot to foot in the battle of
the Lord." During the altercation, Becket lost command
over his fiery temper. His friend, John of Salisbury, gently
censured him for his exasperating tone. The knights
quitted the room and called their men to arms.
A few minutes before five the bell tolled for vespers.
Urged by his friends, the archbishop, with his cross carried
before him, went through the cloisters to the cathedral. The
service had begun, the monks were chanting the psalms in
the choir, the church was filled with people, when two boys
rushed up the nave and created a panic by announcing that
armed men were breaking into the cloister. The attendants
of Becket, who had entered the church, shut the door and
urged him to move into the choir for safety. " Away, you
142 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
cowards ! " he said, " by virtue of your obedience, I command
you not to shut the door ; the church must not be turned
into a fortress." He was evidently prepared and eager for
martyrdom. He himself reopened the door, and dragged the
excluded monks into the building, exclaiming, " Come in, come
in faster, faster!" The monks and priests were terror-
stricken and fled in every direction, to the recesses and side-
chapels, to the roof above, and the crypt below. Three only
remained faithful, Canon Robert of Merton, Chaplain
William Fitz-Stephen, and the clerk Edward Grim. 1 One
of the monks confesses that he ran with clasped hands up the
steps as fast as his feet would carry him.
Becket proceeded to the high altar and archiepiscopal
chair, in which he and all his predecessors from time imme-
morial had been enthroned. There, no doubt, he wished to
gain the crown of martyrdom. It was now about five in the
winter evening; the shades of night were gathering, and the
lamps on the altars shed only a dim light in the dark cathe-
dral. The tragedy which followed was finished in a few
minutes.
In the meantime the knights, clad in mail which covered
their faces up to their eyes, and with drawn swords, followed
by a motley group of ruffians, provided with hatchets, rushed
into the cathedral and shouted: "Where is the traitor?
Where is the archbishop ? " 2 Becket replied, descending the
steps of the altar and facing his enemies, " Behold me, no
traitor, but a priest of God ! " They again demanded the
absolution of the bishops and his surrender to the king's
justice. " I cannot do otherwise than I have done," he said,
and turning to Fitz-Urse, who was armed with a sword and
an axe, he added; "Reginald, you have received many
1 Modern writers are in the habit of calling him a monk, and so he may
have been. In the contemporary narratives he is called simply " clerk."
Abbott, I. 42 sq.
2 See Abbott, I. 89 sqq., on the words used, and Becket's reply.
33. THE MARTYRDOM OF THOMAS BECKET. 143
favors at my hands : come you to me and into my church
armed ! " The knights tried to drag him out of the sanctu-
ary, not intending to kill him there ; but he braced himself
against the pillar between the altars of the Virgin, his special
patroness, and St. Benedict, whose rule he followed, and
said : " I am ready to die. May the Church through my
blood obtain peace and liberty ! I charge you in the name
of God Almighty that you hurt no one here but me." In
the struggle, he grappled with De Tracy and threw him
to the pavement. He called Fitz-Urse (who had seized him
by the collar of his long cloak) a miserable wretch, and
wrenched the cloak from his grasp, saying, " Off, thou
pander, thou ! " 1 The soldier, maddened by the foul epithet,
waving the sword over his head, struck the first blow, and
dashed off his cap. Tracy, rising from the pavement, aimed
at his head ; but Edward Grim, standing by, interposed
his arm, which was almost severed, and then he sank back
against the wall. Becket received blow after blow in an at-
titude of prayer. As he felt the blood trickling down his
face, he bowed his neck for the death-blow, clasped his hands,
and said in a low voice : " I commend my cause and the
cause of the Church to God, to St. Denis, the martyr of
France, to St. Alfege, and to the saints of the Church. 2 In
the name of Christ and for the defence of his Church, I am
ready to die. Lord, receive my spirit."
These were his last words. The next blow felled him to
his knees, the last laid him on the floor at the foot of the
altar of St. Benedict. His hands were still joined as if in
prayer. Richard the Breton cut off the upper part of his
skull, which had received the sacred oil. Hugh of Horsea,
1 " Lenonem appellants." Becket was wont to use violent language. He
called Geoffrey Riddell, the archdeacon of Canterbury, " archdevil." Three
years after Becket's death, Riddell was made bishop of Ely.
2 Abbott, I. 147, holds that these words must have been spoken before the
blow was struck which dislodged the cap from Becket's head. The blow cut
off a piece of the prelate's skull.
144 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
the subdeacon, trampled upon his neck, thrust his sword into
the ghastly wound, and scattered the blood and the brains
over the pavement. 1 Then he said, "Let us go, let us go :
the traitor is dead ; he will rise no more."
The murderers rushed from the church through the
cloisters into the palace for plunder ; while a violent
thunder-storm broke over the cathedral. They stole about
two thousand marks in gold and silver, and rode off on
Becket's fine horses in the thick darkness of the night.
The body of Thomas was buried in the crypt. The
remains of his blood and brains were sacredly kept. His
monkish admirers discovered, to their amazement and delight,
that the martyr, who had once been arrayed in purple arid
fine linen, wore on his skin under his many garments the
coarsest haircloth abounding with vermin. This seemed to
betray the perfection of ascetic sanctity according to mediae-
val notions. 2 The spot of his " martyrdom " is still shown
close to the entrance of the cathedral from the cloister.
34. The Effects of Becket's Murder.
The atrocious murder sent a thrill of horror throughout
the Christian world. The moment of Becket's death was
his triumph. His exalted station, his personal virtues, the
sacrilege, all contributed to deepen the impression. At
first opinion was divided, as he had strong enemies, even
at Canterbury. A monk declared that Becket paid a just
penalty for his obstinacy ; others said, " He wished to be
king and more than king; " the archbishop of York dared to
preach that Becket " perished, like Pharaoh, in his pride."
But the torrent of public admiration soon silenced all
opposition. Miracles took place at his tomb, and sealed his
1 All the authorities relate this brutal sacrilege.
2 Grim, with whom the other original authorities agree, says that those
who saw this haircloth suit, covering the upper and lower parts of Becket's
body, put aside all their doubts and acknowledged him as a martyr.
34. THE EFFECTS OF BECKET'S MUKDEK. 145
claim to the worship of a saint and martyr. "The blind see,
the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, the devils are cast out, even the dead are raised
to life." Thus wrote John of Salisbury, his friend. 1 Remark-
able cures, no doubt, took place ; credulity and fraud exag-
gerated and multiplied them. Within a few years after the
murder, two collections of his miracles were published, one
by Benedict, prior of Canterbury (afterwards abbot of Peter-
borough), and one by William, monk of Canterbury. 2 Ac-
cording to these reports, the miracles began to occur the very
night of the archbishop's death. His blood had miraculous
efficacy for those who drank it. 3
Two years after his death, Feb. 21, 1173, Becket was
1 See his Vita S. Th. in the "Materials," etc., II. 322 : In loco passionis
eius . . . paralytici curantur, cceci vident, surdi audiunt, loquuntur muti,
claudi ambulant, leprosi mundantur . . . et quod a diebus patrum nostrorum
non est auditum, mortui resurgunt.
2 William's long Vita et Passio S. Th. is printed in the " Materials," vol. I.
173-546. The credulous Alban Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, quotes from
an old English MS. of a pretended eye-witness, who records two hundred and
sixty-three miracles wrought by the intercession of St. Thomas, many more
than are found in the whole Bible.
3 Dr. Abbott devotes the main part of his work, 1 : 224 sqq. , II. to a de-
tailed description and discussion of the miracles. His closing chapter, II.
307-314, draws a parallel between these miracles and the miraculous works
of Christ. He makes a distinction between mighty works wrought on human
nature, such as the cure of diseases and the mighty works wrought on " non-
human nature," as on bread, water, trees. The reality of the former he ac-
cepts, though he denies their supernatural character. The latter " are not to
be accepted as historical, but as legends explicable from poetry taken as prose
or from linguistic error or from these two combined." He goes on to say
the distinction between Christ and Thomas is that " the spirit of St. Thomas
had no power to pass into the hearts of men with a permanent vivifying mes-
sage of its own. The Spirit of him whom we worship has both that power
and that message." This is not the place to make an argument for the mira-
cles of the New Testament, but two considerations place them and the mira-
cles of Thomas of Canterbury in different categories. Christ's miracles had
the purpose and worth of attesting his mission as the Saviour of the world,
and they were original. It was quite easy for the mediaeval mind in its fear
and love of the wonderful to associate miracles with its saints, Christ's
example being before them ; but where it was original, the miracles it believed
were for the most part grotesque.
L
146 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
solemnly canonized by Alexander III., who had given him
only a lukewarm support in his contest with the king. There
is scarcely another example of such an early recognition of
saintship; but public sentiment had anticipated it. At a
council in Westminster the papal letters of canonization were
read. All the bishops who had opposed Becket were present,
begged pardon for their offence, and acquiesced in the pope's
decision. The 29th of December was set apart as the feast
of " St. Thomas of Canterbury."
King Henry II., as the supposed author of the monstrous
crime, was branded with a popular excommunication. On
the first news, he shut himself up for three days in his cham-
ber, rolled himself in sackcloth and ashes, and obstinately re-
fused food and comfort. He lived secluded for five weeks,
exclaiming again and again, " Alas, alas that it ever hap-
pened ! " He issued orders for the apprehension of the
murderers, and despatched envoys to the pope to exculpate
himself and to avert the calamity of excommunication and
an interdict. After long delay a reconciliation took place
in the cathedral of Avranches in Normandy, before the papal
legates, the archbishop of Rouen, and many bishops and
noblemen, May 22, 1172. 1 Henry swore on the holy Gospels
that he had neither commanded nor desired the death of
Becket, that it caused him more grief than the death of his
father or his mother, and that he was ready to make full sat-
isfaction. He pledged himself to abrogate the Statutes
of Clarendon; to restore the church of Canterbury to all
its rights and possessions ; to undertake, if the pope should
require it, a three years' crusade to Jerusalem or Spain, and
to support two hundred knights in the Holy Land. After
these pledges he said aloud : " Behold, my lord legates,
my body is in your hands ; be assured that whatever you
order, whether to go to Jerusalem or to Rome or to St. James
1 A granite pillar in the Norman cathedral at Avranches bears an inscrip-
tion in memory of the event. It is given by Stanley, p. 136.
34. THE EFFECTS OF BECKET's MURDER. 147
[at Compostella in Spain], I am ready to obey." He was led
by the bishops into the church and reconciled. His son, who
was present, promised Cardinal Albert to make good his
father's pledges. This penance was followed by a deepest
humiliation at Canterbury.
Two years later, July 12, 1174, the king, depressed by
disasters and the rebellion of his wife and his sons, even
made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket. He dismounted
from his horse as he came in sight of the towers of Canter-
bury, walked as a penitent pilgrim in a woollen shirt, with
bare and bleeding feet, through the streets, knelt in the porch
of the cathedral, kissed the sacred stone on which the arch-
bishop had fallen, threw himself prostrate before the tomb
in the crypt, and confessed to the bishops with groans and
tears his deep remorse for the hasty words which had led to
the murder. Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, once Becket's
rival and enemy, announced to the monks and bystanders
the king's penitence and intention to restore the rights and
property of the Church, and to bestow forty marks yearly on
the monastery to keep lamps burning at the martyr's tomb.
The king, placing his head and shoulders on the tomb, sub-
mitted to the degrading punishment of scourging, and re-
ceived five stripes from each bishop and abbot, and three
stripes from each of the eighty monks. Fully absolved, he
spent the whole night on the bare ground of the crypt in
tears and prayers, imploring the forgiveness of the canonized
saint in heaven whom he had persecuted on earth.
No deeper humiliation of king before priest is recorded in
history. It throws into the shade the submission of Theo-
dosius to Ambrose, of Edgar to Dunstan, of Barbarossa to
Alexander, and even the scene at Canossa.
Fifty years after the martyrdom, Becket's relics were trans-
lated with extraordinary solemnity from the tomb in the
crypt to the costly shrine of Becket, which blazed with gold
and jewels, in the reconstructed Canterbury cathedral (1220).
148 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198
And now began on the largest scale that long succession of
pilgrimages, which for more than three hundred years made
Canterbury the greatest sacred resort of Western Christen-
dom, next to Jerusalem and Rome. It was more frequented
than Loreto in Italy and Einsiedeln in Switzerland. No less
than a hundred thousand pilgrims were registered at Canter-
bury in 1420. From all parts of England, Scotland, Wales,
and Ireland, from France and the far north, men and women
flocked to the shrine: priests, monks, princes, knights, schol-
ars, lawyers, merchants, mechanics, peasants. There was
scarcely an English king, from Henry II. to Henry VIII.,
who did not from motives of piety or policy pay homage
to the memory of the saint. Among the last distinguished
visitors were John Colet, dean of St. Paul's, and Erasmus,
who visited the shrine together between the years 1511 and
1513, and King Henry VIII. and Emperor Charles V., who
attended the last jubilee in 1520. Plenary indulgences were
granted to the pilgrims. Some went in December, the month
of his martyrdom ; a larger number in July, the month of
the translation of his relics. Every fiftieth year a jubilee
lasting fifteen days was celebrated in his honor. Six such
jubilees were celebrated, 1270, 1320, 1370, 1420, 1470, 1520.
The offerings to St. Thomas exceeded those given to any
other saint, even to the holy Virgin.
Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, who lived
two centuries after Becket's martyrdom, has immortalized
these pilgrimages in his Canterbury Tales, and given us
the best description of English society at that time.
The pilgrimages promoted piety, social intercourse, super-
stition, idleness, levity, and immorality, and aroused moral
indignation among many serious and spiritually minded men.
The superstitious idolatry of St. Thomas was continued
down to the time of the Reformation, when it was rudely
but forever crushed out. Henry VIII. cited Becket to
appear in court to answer to the charges of treason and re-
34. THE EFFECTS OF BECKET'S MURDER. 149
bellion. The case was formally argued at Westminster.
His guilt was proved, and on the 10th of June, 1538, St.
Thomas was condemned as a "rebel and a traitor to his prince."
The rich shrine at Canterbury was pillaged ; the gold and
jewels were carried off in two strong coffers, and the rest of
the treasure in twenty-six carts. The jewels went into the
hands of Henry VIII., who wore the most precious of them,
a diamond, the " Regale of France," in the ring on his thumb ;
afterwards it glittered in the golden "collar " of his daughter,
the bigoted Queen Mary. A royal proclamation explained
the cause and mode of Becket's death, and the reasons for
his degradation. All festivals, offices, and prayers in his
name were forbidden. The site of his shrine has remained
vacant to this day.
The Reformation prepared the way for a more spiritual wor-
ship of God and a more just appreciation of the virtues and
faults of Thomas Becket than was possible in the age in
which he lived and died, a hero and a martyr of the papal
hierarchy, but not of pure Christianity, as recorded in the
New Testament. To the most of his countrymen, as to
the English-speaking people at large, his name has remained
the synonym for priestly pride and pretension, for an arrogant
invasion of the rights of the civil estate. To a certain class
of English High Churchmen he remains, like Laud of a
later age, the martyr of sacerdotal privilege, the unselfish
champion of the dowered rights of the Church. The atroc-
ity of his taking-off no one will choose to deny. But the
haughty assumption of the high prelate had afforded pre-
text enough for vehement indignation and severe treatment.
Priestly robes may for a time conceal and even protect pride
from violence, but sooner or later it meets its just reward.
The prelate's superiority involved in Becket's favorite ex-
pression, " saving the honor of my order," was more than a
king of free blood could be expected to bear.
This dramatic chapter of English history may be fitly
150 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
closed with a scene from Lord Tennyson's tragedy which
presents the personal quality that brought about Thomas a
Becket's fall. 1
JOHN OF SALISBURY.
Thomas, I would thou hadst returned to England
Like some wise prince of this world from his wars,
With more of olive-branch and amnesty
For foes at home thou hast raised the world against thee.
BECKET.
Why, John, my kingdom is not of this world.
JOHN OF SALISBURY.
If it were more of this world it might be
More of the next. A policy of wise pardon
Wins here as well as there. To bless thine enemies
BECKET.
Ay, mine, not Heaven's.
JOHN OF SALISBURY.
And may there not be something
Of this world's leaven in thee too, when crying
On Holy Church to thunder out her rights
And thine own wrong so piteously. Ah, Thomas,
The lightnings that we think are only Heaven's
Flash sometimes out of earth against the heavens.
The soldier, when he lets his whole self go
Lost in the common good, the common wrong,
Strikes truest ev'n for his own self. I crave
Thy pardon I have still thy leave to speak.
Thou hast waged God's war against the King ; and yet
We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may,
Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites
And private hates with our defence of Heaven.
1 Sir Henry Irving, the distinguished English actor, died Oct. 20, 1905,
seven days after a performance of this drama, the last time he appeared on
the stage.
CHAPTER V.
INNOCENT III. AND HIS AGE. A.D. 1198-1216.
35. Literature.
SOURCES: Innocentii III. Opp. omnia, in Migne, 4 vols. 214-217; three vols.
contain Innocent's official letters ; a 4th, his sermons, the de contemptu
mundi, and other works. S. BALUZIUS : Epistolarum Inn. III. libri
undecim, 2 vols. Paris, 1682. BOHMER : JRegesta imperil 1198-1254,
new ed. by J. FICKER, Innsbruck, 1881. POTTHAST : Regesta, pp. 1-467,
2041-2056 Gesta Innoc. III. auctore anonymo sed cocevo (a contem-
porary Life, about 1220), in Migne, 214, pp. xvii-ccxxviii, and BALUZIUS.
MANSI, XXII. MIRBT : Quellen, 125-136, gives some of the character-
istic passages. For the older edd. of Inn.'s letters and other works,
see POTTHAST, Bibliotheca med. cevi, I. 520, 650.
MODERN WORKS: FRIEDRICH VON HURTER (1787-1886): Geschichte Papst
Innocenz des Dritten und seiner Zeitgenossen, 2 vols. Hamburg, 1833-
1835; 3d ed. 4 vols. 1841-1844 (trans, into French and Italian). The
last two volumes are devoted to the monastic orders and the eccles. and
social conditions of the thirteenth century. An exhaustive work full of
enthusiastic admiration for Innocent and his age. Hurter wrote it
while antistes or pastor of the Reformed Church in Schaffhausen, Switz-
erland, and was led by his studies to enter, with his family, the Roman
Catholic communion in 1844 and became imperial counsellor and histori-
ographer of Austria. Gfrorer, likewise a Protestant, dazzled by the
splendor of the Gregorian papacy in the preparation of his Life of Greg-
ory VII., was also led to join the Roman communion. JORRY : Hist, du
pape Inn. III. ; Paris, 1853. F. F. REINLEIN: Papst Inn. III. und seine
Schrift de contemptu mundi, Erlangen, 1871 ; also Inn. III. nach s.
Seziehung zur Unfehlbarkeitsfrage, Erlangen, 1872. H. ELKAN: Die
Gesta Inn. III. im VerhaUniss zu d. Regesten desselbtn Papstes, Heidel-
berg, 1876. FR. DEUTSCH : Papst Inn. III. und s. Einfluss auf d.
Kirche, Bresl., 1876. LEOP. DELISLE : Memoire sur les actes d'Inn.
Ill, suivi de Vitineraire de ce pontife, Paris, 1877. J. N. BRISCHAR,
Roman Catholic : Papst Inn. III. und s. Zeit, Freib. im Br. 1883. J.
LANGEN : Gesch. d. rom. Kirche von Gregor. VII. bis Inn. III., Bonn, 1893 ;
also HEFELE-KNOPFLER, vol. V. the Works on the Hohenstaufen and the
Crusades. RANKE : Weltgesch., VIII. 274 sqq. the Histories of Rome
by REUMONT, BRYCE, and GREGOROVIUS. HAUCK : Kirchengeschichte
Deutschlands, IV. 658-745. T. F. TOUT : The Empire and the Papacy,
918-1272, N.Y. 1898. H. FISHER: The Med. Empire, 2 vols. London,
1898. For fuller lit., see CHEVALIER ; Repertoire, pp. 1114 sq. and Suppl.
2659, and art. Inn. III., by ZOPFFEL-MIRBT, in Herzog, IX. 112-122.
151
152 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
36. Innocent's Training and Election.
THE brilliant pontificate of Innocent III., 1198-1216, lasted
as long as the combined and uneventful reigns of his five
predecessors: Lucius III., 1181-1185; Urban III., 1185-1187;
Gregory VIII. less than two months, 1187; Clement III.,
1187-1191; Ccelestin III., 1191-1198. It marks the golden
age of the mediaeval papacy and one of the most important
eras in the history of the Catholic Church. No other mortal
has before or since wielded such extensive power. As the
spiritual sovereign of Latin Christendom, he had no rival.
At the same time he was the acknowledged arbiter of the
political destinies of Europe from Constantinople to Scot-
land. He successfully carried into execution the highest
theory of the papal theocracy and anticipated the Vatican
dogmas of papal absolutism and infallibility. To the papal
title "vicar of Christ," Innocent added for the first time
the title "vicar of God." He set aside the decisions of
bishops and provincial councils, and lifted up and cast down
kings. He summoned and guided one of the most important
of the councils of the Western Church, the Fourth Lateran,
1215, whose acts established the Inquisition and fixed
trans ubstantiation as a dogma. He set on foot the Fourth
Crusade, and died making preparation for another. On the
other hand he set Christian against Christian, and by under-
taking to extirpate religious dissent by force drenched parts
of Europe in Christian blood.
Lothario, Innocent's baptismal name, was born about 1160
at Anagni, a favorite summer resort of the popes. He was
the son of Count Trasmondo of the house of the Conti de
Segni, one of the ruling families of the Latium. 1 It fur-
nished nine popes, of whom Innocent XIII. was the last.
1 Like Hildebrand, Innocent may have combined Germanic with Italian
blood. Upon the basis of such family names among the Conti as Lothaire
and Richard, Gregorovius finds evidence of Lombard origin.
36. INNOCENT'S TRAINING AND ELECTION. 153
He studied theology and canon law at Paris and Bologna,
and became proficient in scholastic learning. Through the
influence of three uncles, who were cardinals, he was rapidly
promoted, and in 1190, at the age of twenty-nine, was
appointed cardinal-deacon by one of them, Pope Clement III.
Though the youngest member of the curia, he was at once
assigned a place of responsibility.
During the pontificate of Ccelestin III., a member of the
house of the Orsini which was unfriendly to the Conti,
Lothario withdrew into retirement and devoted himself to
literature. The chief fruit of this seclusion is the work enti-
tled The Contempt of the World or the Misery of the Mortal
Estate. 1 It might well have been followed, as the author says
in the prologue, by a second treatise on the dignity of man's
estate. To this time belongs also a work on the sacrifice of
the mass. 2 After his elevation to the papal throne, Innocent
composed an Exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms.
While pope he preached often both in Rome and on his
journeys. His sermons abound in mystical and allegorical
figures. Of his letters more than five hundred are preserved.
The Contempt of the World is an ascetic plaint over the
sinfulness and woes of this present life. It proceeds upon
the basis of Augustine's theory of total depravity. The
misery of man is described from the helplessness of infancy
to the decrepitude of age and the sufferings of the future
estate. Pessimistic passages are quoted from Jeremiah,
Ecclesiastes, and Job, and also from Horace, Ovid, and
Juvenal. Three master passions are constantly tormenting
man, avarice, lust, and ambition, to which are added the
innumerable ailments of the body and troubles of the soul.
The author deplores the fate of masters and servants, of the
1 The de contemptu mundi sive de miseria conditionis humance was first
printed at Ulm, 1448, then at Lyons, 1473, Nlirnberg, 1477, etc. See Migne's
ed. 217, 701-746.
2 Mysterium evangelicce legis et sacramentum eucharistice or de missarum
mysteriis.
154 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
married and the unmarried, of the good and the bad, the
rich and the poor. " It is just and natural that the wicked
should suffer ; but are the righteous one whit better off ?
Here below is their prison, not their home or their final
destiny. As soon as a man rises to a station of dignity,
cares and trouble increase, fasting is abridged, night
watches are prolonged, nature's constitution is undermined,
sleep and appetite flee, the vigor of the body gives way
to weakness, and a sorrowful end is the close of a sor-
rowful life." 1 In the case of the impenitent, eternal
damnation perpetuates the woes of time. With a descrip-
tion of these woes the work closes, reminding the reader
of the solemn cadences of the Dies Irce of Thomas of Celano
and Dante's Inferno. 2
Called forth from retirement to the chief office in Chris-
tendom, Innocent had an opportunity to show his contempt
of the world by ruling it with a strong and iron hand. The
careers of the best of the popes of the Middle Ages, as well
as of ecclesiastics like Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas of
Canterbury, reveal the intimate connection between the hie-
rarchical and ascetic tendencies. Innocent likewise displayed
these two tendencies. In his treatise on the mass he antici-
pated the haughty assumption of the papacy, based on the
rock-foundation of Peter's primacy, which as pope he after-
wards displayed.
On the very day of Co3lestin's burial, the college of car-
dinals unanimously chose Lothario pope. Like Gregory I.,
Gregory VII., Alexander III., and other popes, he made a
1 II. 29.
2 The Dies Irce has been ascribed to Innocent. Here are the concluding
words of this famous treatise. " Ibi erit fletus et stridor dentium (Matthew
xiii.), yemitits et ululatus, luctus et cruciatus, stridor et clamor, timor et tre-
mor, dolor et labor, ardor etfcetor, obscuritas et anxietas, acerbitas et asperi-
tas, calamitas et egestas, angustia et tristitia, oblivio et confusio, torsiones et
punctiones, amaritudines et terrores, fames et sitis, frig us et cauma, sulphur
et ignis ardens in scecula sceculorum. Unde liberet nos Deus, qui est benedio-
tusin scecula sceculorum. Amen." III. 17 ; Migne, 217, 746.
36. INNOCENT'S TRAINING AND ELECTION. 155
show of yielding reluctantly to the election. He was ordained
priest, and the next day, February 22, was consecrated bishop
and formally ascended the throne in St. Peter's.
The coronation ceremonies were on a splendid scale. But
the size of Rome, whose population at this time may not have
exceeded thirty-five thousand, must be taken into account
when we compare them with the pageants of the ancient city. 1
At the enthronization in St. Peter's, the tiara was used which
Constantine is said to have presented to Sylvester, and the
words were said, " Take the tiara and know that thou art the
father of princes and kings, the ruler of the world, the vicar
on earth of our Saviour Jesus Christ, whose honor and glory
shall endure throughout all eternity." Then followed the
procession through the city to the Lateran. The pope sat on
a white palfrey and was accompanied by the prefect of the
city, the senators and other municipal officials, the nobility,
the cardinals, archbishops, and other church dignitaries, the
lesser clergy and the popular throng all amidst the ringing
of bells, the chanting of psalms, and the acclamations of the
people. Along the route a singular scene was presented at
the Ghetto by a group of Jews, the rabbi at their head carry-
ing a roll of the Pentateuch, who bowed low as they saluted
their new ruler upon whose favor or frown depended their
protection from the populace, yea, their very life. Arrived
at the Lateran, the pope threw out handfuls of copper coins
among the people with the words, " Silver and gold have I
none, but such as I have give I thee." The silver key of the
palace and the golden key of the basilica were then put into
his hands, and the senate did him homage. A banquet fol-
lowed, the pope sitting at a table alone. 2 Upon such pomp
and show of worldly power the Apostles, whose lot was
poverty, would have looked with wonder, if they had been
1 See Gregorovius, V. 7.
2 Elaborate descriptions of the ceremonies are given by Hurter, I. 92 sqq.,
and Gregorovius, V. 7-15.
156 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
told that the central figure of it all was the chief personality
in the Christian world.
When he ascended the fisherman's throne, Innocent was
only thirty-seven years old, the youngest in the line of popes
up to that time. Walter von der Vogelweide gave expression
to the fear which his youth awakened when he wrote, wS der
bdbest ist ze June, hilf herre diner kristenheit. " Alas ! the
pope is so young. Help, Lord, thy Christian world." The
new pontiff was well formed, medium in stature, 1 temper-
ate in his habits, clear in perception, resolute in will, and
fearless in action. He was a born ruler of men, a keen judge
of human nature, demanding unconditional submission to
his will, yet considerate in the use of power after submission
was once given, an imperial personality towering high above
the contemporary sovereigns in moral force and in magnificent
aims of world-wide dominion.
37. Innocent's Theory of the Papacy.
The pope with whom Innocent is naturally brought into
comparison is Hildebrand. They were equally distinguished
for moral force, intellectual energy, and proud assertion of
prelatic prerogative. Innocent was Hildebrand's superior in
learning, diplomatic tact, and success of administration, but
in creative genius and heroic character he was below his
predecessor. He stands related to his great predecessor as
Augustus to Julius. He was heir to the astounding pro-
gramme of Hildebrand's scheme and enjoyed the fruits of his
struggles. Their personal fortunes were widely different.
Gregory was driven from Rome and died in exile. To Inno-
cent's good fortune there seemed to be no end, and he closed
his pontificate in undisputed possession of authority.
Innocent no sooner ascended the papal chair than he began
1 Statura mediocris, etc. See Gesta, Migne, 214, XVII. The portrait
prefixed in Hurter has no historic value. For Innocent's personal habits
and methods of conducting business, see Hurter, II. 743 sqq.
37. INNOCENT'S THEORY OF THE PAPACY. 157
to give expression to his conception of the papal dignity.
Throughout his pontificate he forcibly and clearly expounded
it in a tone of mingled official pride and personal humil-
ity. At his coronation he preached on the faithful and wise
servant. " Ye see," he said, " what manner of servant it is
whom the Lord hath set over his people, no other than the
vicegerent of Christ, the successor of Peter. He stands in
the midst between God and man ; below God, above man;
less than God, more than man. He judges all and is judged
by none. But he, whom the pre-eminence of dignity exalts,
is humbled by his vocation as a servant, that so humility
may be exalted and pride be cast down ; for God is against
the high-minded, and to the lowly He shows mercy ; and
whoso exalteth himself shall be abased."
Indeed, the papal theocracy was Innocent's all-absorbing
idea. He was fully convinced that it was established of God
for the good of the Church and the salvation of the world.
As God gave to Christ all power in heaven and on earth,
so Christ delegated to Peter and his successors the same
authority. Not man but God founded the Apostolic see. 1 In
his famous letter to the patriarch of Constantinople, Nov. 12,
1199, 2 he gave an elaborate exposition of the commission to
Peter. To him alone the command had been given, " Feed
my sheep." On him alone it had been declared, " I will build
my church." The pope is the vicar of Christ, yea of God
himself. 3 Not only is he intrusted with the dominion of the
Church, but also with the rule of the whole world. Like
Melchizedek, he is at once king and priest. All things in
heaven and earth and in hell are subject to Christ. So are
they also to his vicar. He can depose princes and absolve
1 Apostolicce sedis primatus quern non homo sed Deus, imo verius Deus
homo constituit.
2 Beg. II. 209 ; Migne, 214, 758-765.
8 Cum non humana sed divina fiat auctoritate quod in hac parte per sum-
mum pontificem adimpletur, qui non hominis puri sed veri Dei vere vica-
rius appellatur. I. 326 ; Migne, 214, 292.
158 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
subjects from the oath of allegiance. He may enforce sub-
mission by placing whole nations under the interdict. Peter
alone went to Jesus on the water and by so doing he gave
illustration of the unique privilege of the papacy to govern
the whole earth. For the other disciples stayed in the ship
and so to them was given rule only over single provinces.
And as the waters were many on which Peter walked, so over
the many congregations and nations, which the waters repre-
sent, was Peter given authority yea over all nations what-
soever (universes populos'). 1 In this letter he also clearly
teaches papal infallibility and declares that Peter's successor
can never in any way depart from the Catholic faith.
Gregory VII. 's illustration, likening the priestly estate
(sacerdotium) to the sun, and the civil estate (regnum or
imperium) to the moon, Innocent amplified and empha-
sized. Two great lights, Innocent said, were placed by
God in the firmament of heaven, and to these correspond the
" pontifical authority and the regal authority," the one to
rule over souls as the sun rules over the day, the other to rule
over the bodies of men as the moon rules over the night. And
as the moon gets its light from the sun, and as it is also less
than the sun both in quality and in size, and in the effect
produced, so the regal power gets its dignity and splendor
from the pontifical authority which has in it more inherent
virtue. 2 The priest anoints the king, not the king the priest,
and superior is he that anoints to the anointed. 3 Princes
1 Nam cum aquae multce sint, popnli multi, congregationesque aquarum
sunt maria, per hoc quod Petrus super aquas marts incessit, super universos
populos se potestatem accepisse monstravit. II. 209 ; Migne, 214, 760 ; Pott-
hast, 82. In this letter Innocent quotes no less than twenty-five passages of
Scripture.
2 Sicut luna lumen suum a sole sortitur, quce re vera minor est isto quan-
titate simul et qualitate, situ pariter et effectu, sic regalis potestas ab auc-
toritate pontificali suce sortitur dignitatis splendorem, etc. See Mirbt,
Quellen, 130.
9 Minor est qui unguitur quam qui ungit, et dignior est unguens quam
unctus. Migne, 216, 1012, 1179 ; Potthast, 98.
37. INNOCENT'S THEORY OF THE PAPACY. 159
have authority in separate lands ; the pontiff over all lands.
The priesthood came by divine creation ;- the kingly power
by man's manipulation and violence. 1 " As in the ark of
God," so he wrote to John of England, " the rod and the
manna lay beside the tables of the law, so at the side of the
knowledge of the law, in the breast of the pope, are lodged
the terrible power of destruction and the genial mildness of
grace." Innocent reminded John that if he did not lift his
foot from off the Church, nothing would check his punishment
and fall. 2 Monarchs throughout Europe listened to Innocent's
exposition and obeyed. His correspondence abounds with
letters to the emperor, the kings of Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily,
France, England, the Danes, Aragon, and to other princes,
teaching them their duty and demanding their submission.
Under Innocent's rule, the subjection of the entire Chris-
tian world to the Roman pontiff seemed to be near realiza-
tion. But the measures of force which were employed in the
Latin conquest of Constantinople, 1204, had the opposite effect
from what was intended. The overthrow of the Byzantine
empire and the establishment of a Latin empire in its stead
and the creation of a new hierarchy of Constantinople only
completed the final alienation of the Greek and Latin
churches. To Innocent III. may not be denied deep concern
in the extension of Christendom. But the rigorous system of
the Inquisition which he set on foot begat bitterness and war
of churchman against Christian dissenter and of Christian
against Mohammedan. More blood was shed at the hand of
the Church during the pontificate of Innocent, and under his
immediate successors carrying out his policy, than in any
1 Sacerdotium per ordinationem divinam, regnum autem per extorsionem
humanam. He also speaks of the unity of the Church as the product of
grace and the divisions of the empire as the product of or judgment of sin.
Ecclesia per Dei gratiam in unitate consistit, et imperium peccatis exigen-
tibus est divi&um. Migne, 216, 1179 ; Potthast, 98.
2 Migne, 217, 922. Gregorovius pronounces this "probably the most im-
perious document of the papal power." V. 104.
160 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
other age except during the papal counter- Reformation in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The audacious papal
claim to imperialism corrected itself by the policy employed
by Innocent and his successors to establish the claim over the
souls and bodies of men and the governments of the earth. 1
38. Innocent and the German Umpire.
ADDITIONAL LITERATURE. Ed. WINKELMANN : Philip von Schwaben und
Otto IV. von Braunschweig, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1873-1878. R. SCHWEMER:
Innocent III. und d. deutsche Kirche icahrend des Thronstreites von
1198-1208, Strassburg, 1882.
The political condition of Europe was favorable to In-
nocent's assertion of power. With the sudden death of
Henry VI., Sept. 28, 1197, at the early age of thirty-two, the
German empire was left without a ruler. Frederick, the
Emperor's only son, was a helpless child. Throughout Italy
a reaction set in against Henry's hard and oppressive rule.
The spirit of national freedom was showing itself, and a
general effort was begun to expel the German princes and
counts from Italian soil.
Innocent III. has been called by Ranke Henry's real suc-
cessor. 2 Taking advantage of the rising feeling of Italian
nationality, the pope made it his policy to separate middle
and lower Italy from the empire, and, in fact, he became the
deliverer of the peninsula from foreign agents and mercenaries.
He began his reign by abolishing the last vestiges of the
authority of the empire in the city of Rome. The city pre-
fect, who had represented the emperor, took the oath of
allegiance to the pope, and Innocent invested him with a
1 Hauck, IV. 743, acknowledging the genius of Innocent, expresses the
somewhat disparaging judgment that "he was more of a rhetorician than
a theologian, and more of a jurist and administrator than a statesman."
Many Protestant writers of Germany show their national feeling by a dis-
position to disparage Gregory VII. and Innocent III.
2 Wtltgeschichte, VIII. 274. Matthews, 105 sq. gives Henry VI.'s Testa-
ment.
38. INNOCENT AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 161
mantle and silver cup. The senator likewise acknowledged
Innocent's authority and swore to protect the Roman see and
the regalia of St. Peter.
The pope quickly pushed his authority beyond the walls of
Rome. Spoleto, which for six centuries had been ruled by
a line of German dukes, Assisi, Perugia, and other cities, sub-
mitted. Mark of Anweiler, the fierce soldier of Henry VI.,
could not withstand the fortunate diplomacy and arms of
Innocent, and the Romagna, with Ravenna as its centre,
yielded. A Tuscan league was formed which was favorably
disposed to the papal authority. Florence, Siena, Pisa, and
other cities, while refusing to renounce their civic freedom,
granted privileges to the pope. Everywhere Innocent had
his legates. Such full exercise of papal power over the
State of the Church had not before been known.
To confirm her son Frederick's title to the crown of Sicily,
his mother delivered the kingdom over to the pope as a papal
fief. She survived her imperial consort only a year, and
left a will appointing Innocent the guardian of her child.
The intellectual training and political destinies of the heir
of the Hohenstaufen were thus intrusted to the hereditary
foe of that august house. Innocent was left a free hand to
prosecute his trust as he chose. 1
In Germany, Innocent became the umpire of the imperial
election. The electors were divided between two aspirants
to the throne, Philip of Swabia, the brother of Henry VI.,
who was crowned at Mainz, and Otto, the son of Henry the
Lion, who was crowned at Aachen by Adolf, archbishop of
Cologne. Otto was the nephew of Richard Coeur de Lion and
John of England, who supported his claims with their gold
and diplomacy. Both parties made their appeal to Rome,
and it is not a matter of surprise that Innocent's sympathies
1 One of Frederick's first acts was to release a portion of his patrimony to
the pope's brother, Count Richard. At a later period, under Honorius, Fred-
erick recalled his gift.
162 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
were with the Guelf, Otto, rather than with the Hohen-
staufen. Moreover, Philip had given offence by occupying,
as duke of Tuscany, the estates of Matilda.
Innocent made the high claim that the German throne
depended for its occupant "from the beginning and ulti-
mately " upon the decision of the papal see. Had not the
Church transferred the empire from the East to the West ?
And had not the Church itself conferred the imperial crown, 1
passing by the claims of Frederick and pronouncing Philip
" unworthy of empire " ? Innocent decided in 1201 in favor of
Otto, " his dearest son in Christ who was himself devoted to
the Church and on both sides was descended from devout
stock." The decision inured to Rome's advantage. By the
stipulation of Neuss, subsequently repeated at Spires, 1209,
Otto promised obedience to the pope and renounced all claim
to dominion in the State of the Church and also to Naples
and Sicily. This written document was a dangerous ratifi-
cation of the real or pretended territorial rights and privi-
leges of the papacy from Constantino and Pepin down.
Civil war broke out, and when the tide of success turned
in Philip's favor, the pope released him from the sentence
of excommunication and was about to acknowledge him as
emperor 2 when the murderous sword of Otto of Wittelsbach,
in 1208, brought Philip's career to a tragic end. The year
following Otto was crowned in St. Peter's, but he forgot
his promises and proceeded to act out the independent policy
of the rival house of the Hohenstaufen. 3 He laid heavy hand
upon Central Italy, distributing rich estates and provinces
1 Imperium principaliter et finaliter dignoscitur pertinere, principaliter
quia ipsa transtulit imperium ab Oriente ad Occidentem ; finaliter quia ipsa
concedit coronam imperil. Migne, 216, 1182 ; Potthast, 98; also Migne, 216,
1048; Potthast, 119.
2 The very archbishop of Cologne who had crowned Otto now put the
crown on Philip's head.
3 Otto had sought to join the fortunes of the two houses by marrying
Philip's daughter, Beatrice, who died soon after the nuptials.
38. INNOCENT AND THE GERMAN EMPIKE. 163
among his vassals and sequestrating the revenues of the
clergy. He then marched to Southern Italy, the territory of
Frederick, and received the surrender of Naples.
All that Innocent had gained seemed in danger of being
lost. Prompt measures showed him equal to the emergency.
He wrote that the stone he had erected to be the head of
the corner had become a rock of offence. Like Rachel he
mourned over his son whom he lamented to have made king.
Otto was excommunicated and a meeting of magnates at
Niirnberg, 1211, declared him deposed, and, pronouncing in
favor of Frederick, sent envoys to Palermo to convey to him
the intelligence. Otto crossed the Alps to reclaim his power,
but it was too late. Frederick started north, stopping at
Rome, where Innocent saw him for the first and last time,
April, 1212. He was elected and crowned king at Frankfurt,
December, 1212, and was recognized by nearly all the princes
at Eger the year following. Before setting out from Italy
he had again recognized Sicily as a fief of Rome. At Eger
he disavowed all imperial right to the State of the Church. 1
Otto joined in league with John of England and the Flem-
ish princes against Philip Augustus of France; but his hopes
were dashed to the ground on the battlefield of Bouvines,
Belgium/1415. His authority was thenceforth confined to
his ancestral estate. He died 1218. Innocent had gained
the -day. His successors were to be defied by the young
king, Frederick, for nearly half a century.
With equal spirit and decision, Innocent mingled in the
affairs of the other states of Europe. In France, the contro-
versy was over the sanctity of the marriage vow. Philip
Augustus put away his second wife, 2 a Danish princess, a
1 This was the so-called Golden Bull of Eger, July 12, 1213. Frederick
calls himself in it, " King of the Romans and of Sicily." He promised to
defend Sicily for the Roman Church as a " devoted son and Catholic prince,"
devotus filius zt Catholicus princeps. Mirbt, Quellen, 131 sqq. ; Matthews,
115 sqq.
2 Migne, 215, 1493, etc.
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
few months after their marriage, and took the fair Agnes
of Meran in her stead. The French bishops, on the plea of
remote consanguinity, justified the divorce. But Innocent,
listening to the appeals of Ingeborg, and placing France
under the interdict, forced the king to take her back. 1
The Christian states of the Spanish peninsula felt the
pontiff's strong hand. The kingdom of Leon was kept under
the interdict five years till Alfonso IX. consented to dismiss
his wife on account of blood relationship. Pedro, king of
Aragon, a model of Spanish chivalry, received his crown
at Rome in 1204 and made his realm a fief of the Apostolic
see. Sancho, king of the newly risen kingdom of Portugal,
was defeated in his effort to break away from the pope's
suzerainty.
In the North, Sweden accepted Innocent's decision in favor
of the house of Schwerker, and the Danish king, who was
attempting to reduce the tribes along the Baltic to Chris-
tianity, was protected by the pope's threat of interdict upon
all molesting his realm. The king of England was humbled
to the dust by Innocent's word. To the king of Scotland a
legate was sent and a valuable sword. Even Iceland is said
to have been the subject of Innocent's thought and action.
In the Southeast, Johannitius of Bulgaria received from
Innocent his crown after bowing before his rebuke for having
ventured to accept it from Philip of Swabia. Ottoker, prince
of Bohemia, was anointed by the papal legate, and Emmeric
of Hungary made a vow to lead a crusade, which his brother
Andrew executed. Thus all the states of Europe west of
Russia were made to feel the supremacy of the papal power.
The conquest of Constantinople and the Holy Land, as we
shall see, occupied an equal share of attention from this tire-
less and masterful ruler, and the establishment of the Latin
Empire of Constantinople, 1205, was regarded as a signal
triumph for the papal policy.
1 The pope legitimatized the children of Agnes, who died in 1201.
39. INNOCENT AND KING JOHN OF ENGLAND. 165
39. Innocent and King John of. England.
" This royal throne of kings, this sceptr'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise ;
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war ;
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands ;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth.*'
Shakespeare, Richard II., Act II. Sc. 1.
ADDITIONAL LITERATURE. The Chronicle of ROGER OF WENDOVER (the
first of the St. Alban annalists) and the revision and continuation of the
same by MATTHEW PARIS (a monk of St. Alban's, the last and greatest of
the monastic historians of England), ed. by H. R. LUARD in Rolls Series,
7 vols. London, 1872-1883, vol. II. Engl. trans, of Wendover by J. A.
GILES, Bonn's Lib. 2 vols. London, 1849 ; of M. Paris by GILES, 3 vols.
London, 1852-1854. Memorials of WALTER OF COVENTRY, ed. by STUBBS,
2 vols. 1872 sq. RADULPH OF COGGESHALL: Chronicon Anglicanum,
ed. by J. STEVENSON, 1875. The Annals of Waverley, Dunstable, and
Burton, all in the Rolls Series. W. STDBBS : The Constitutional Hist,
of England, 6th ed. 3 vols. Oxford, 1897, and Select Charters, etc., 8th ed.
Oxford, 1900, pp. 270-306. GEE and HARDY : Documents, London, 1896.
R. GNEIST : Hist, of the Engl. Court, Engl. trans. 2 vols. London, 188(3,
vol. I. 294-332. E. GUTSCHOW : Innocent III. und England, Munich,
1904, pp. 198. The Histories of LINGARD (R. C.), GREEN, MILMAN,
FREEMAN (Norman Conquest, vol. V.). For Stephen Langton, DEAN
HOOK : Lives of the Abp. of Canterbury, and art. Langton, in Diet, of
Natl. Siog.Also W. HUNT, art. John, in Diet, of Natt. Biog. XXIX.
402-417. Sir JAMES H. RAMSEY: The Angevin Empire, 1154-1216,
London, 1903. He calls John a brutal tyrant, hopelessly depraved,
without ability in war or politics.
Under Innocent, England comes, if possible, into greater
prominence in the history of the papacy than during the
controversy in the reign of Alexander III., a generation be-
fore. Then the English actors were Henry II. and Thomas
a Becket. Now they are Henry's son John and Becket's
successor Stephen Langton. The pope was victorious, in-
166 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
flicting the deepest humiliation upon the English king;
but he afterwards lost the advantage he had gained by
supporting John against his barons and denouncing the
Magna Charta of English popular rights. The contro-
versy forms one of the most interesting episodes of English
history.
John, surnamed Sansterre or Lackland, 1167-1216, suc-
ceeded his brother Richard I. on the throne, 1199. A man
of decided ability and rapid in action but of ignoble spirit,
low morals, and despotic temper, he brought upon his realm
such disgrace as England before or since has not suffered.
His reign was a succession of wrongs and insults to the
English people and the English church.
John had joined Richard in a revolt against their father,
sought to displace his brother on the throne during his cap-
tivity after the Third Crusade, and was generally believed
by contemporaries to have put to death his brother Geoffrey's
son, Arthur of Brittany, who would have been Richard's
successor if the law of primogeniture had been followed.
He lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Aquitaine to the Eng-
lish. Perjury was no barrier to the accomplishment of his
plans. He set aside one wife and was faithless to another.
No woman was too well born to be safe against his advances.
He plundered churches and convents to pay his debts and
satisfy his avarice, and yet he never undertook a journey
without hanging charms around his neck. 1
Innocent came into collision with John over the selection
of a successor to Archbishop Hubert of Canterbury, who
1 The contemporary annalists know no words too black to describe John's
character. Lingard says, "John stands before us polluted with meanness,
cruelty, perjury, murder, and unbridled licentiousness." Green, after quot-
ing the words "foul as hell is, hell itself is defiled with the foul presence of
John," says, " In his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Ange-
vins. . . . But with the wickedness of his race he inherited its profound
abilities." III. chap. I. Hunt, in Diet, of Natl. Biog., XXIX. 406, uses these
words, " He was mean, false, vindictive, abominably cruel, and scandalously
immoral. 1 '
39. INNOCENT AND KING JOHN OF ENGLAND. 167
died 1205. l The monks of Canterbury, exercising an ancient
privilege, chose Reginald one of their number. With the
king's support, a minority proceeded to another election and
chose the king's nominee, John de Grey, bishop of Norwich.
John was recognized by the suffragan-bishops and put into
possession by the king.
An appeal was made by both parties to Rome, Reginald
appearing there in person. After a delay of a year, Innocent
set aside both elections and ordered the Canterbury monks,
present in Rome, to proceed to the choice of another candi-
date. The choice fell upon Stephen Langton, cardinal of
Chrysogonus. Born on English soil, Stephen was a man of
indisputable learning and moral worth. He had studied
in Paris and won by his merits prebends in the cathedral
churches of Paris and York. The metropolitan dignity
could have been intrusted to no shoulders more worthy of
wearing it. 2 While he has no title to saintship like a Becket,
or to theological genius like Anselm, Langton will always
occupy a place among the foremost of England's primates
as a faithful administrator and the advocate of English
popular liberties.
The new archbishop received consecration at the pope's
own hand, June 17, 1207, and held his office till his death,
1228. 3 The English king met the notification with fierce
resistance, confiscated the property of the Canterbury chap-
ter, and expelled the monks as guilty of treason. Innocent
replied with the threat of the interdict. The king swore by
1 He had before come into collision with John over the harsh treatment of
the archbishop of Dublin. Works of Innocent III., Beg., VI. 63; Migne,
215, 61 ; Potthast, 167.
2 His scholarly tastes are attested by his sermons, poems, and comments on
books of the Bible which still exist in manuscript in the libraries of Oxford,
Cambridge, Lambeth, and of France. He is falsely credited by some with
having been the first to divide the entire Bible into chapters. See Hook,
Archbishops of Canterbury, II. 678.
8 Innocent, in his letter to John of May 26, 1207, declared he would turn
neither to the right nor to the left in confirming the election. Potthast, 264.
168 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
God's teeth 1 to follow the censure, if pronounced, with the
mutilation of every Italian in the realm appointed by Inno-
cent, and the expulsion of all the prelates and clergy. The
sentence was published by the bishops of London, Ely, and
Worcester, March 22, 1208. 2 They then fled the kingdom.
The interdict at once took effect, casting a deep gloom
over the nation. The church bells remained unrung.
The church buildings were closed. The usual ministrations
of the priesthood remained unperformed. The great doors
of the monasteries were left unopened, and worshippers were
only admitted by secret passages. Penance was inflicted
upon the innocent as well as the erring. Women, after child-
birth, presented themselves for purification outside the church
walls. The dead were refused burial in consecrated ground,
and the service of the priest was withheld.
John, although he had seen Philip Augustus bend under a
similar censure, affected unconcern, and retaliated by confis-
cating the property of the higher clergy and convents and
turning the inmates out of doors with little more than the
clothes on their backs. The concubines of the priests were
forcibly removed and purchased their ransom at heavy ex-
pense. A Welshman accused of murdering a priest was
ordered by the king dismissed with the words, " Let him
go, he has killed my enemy." The relatives of the fugitive
bishops were thrown into prison.
In 1209 Innocent added to the interdict the solemn sentence
of the personal anathema against the king. 3 The bishops
who remained in England did not dare publish it, "becoming
like dumb dogs not daring to bark." 4 John persisted in his
defiant mood, continued to eke out his vengeance upon the
innocent, and sought to divert the attention of his subjects
^his and the expression "by God's feet" were John's favorite forms of
objurgation.
2 See Migne, 217, 190; Potthast, 286.
8 Potthast, 316.
* A favorite expression of Matthew Paris.
39. INNOCENT AND KING JOHN OF ENGLAND. 169
by negotiations and wars with Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
Geoffrey, archdeacon of Norwich, who had been in his ser-
vice and now felt he could no longer so remain, was thrown
into prison and there allowed to languish to death, covered
from shoulders to feet with a cope of lead. 1
One more weapon lay in the pope's power. In 1212 John
was declared unworthy of his throne, and deposed. His
subjects were absolved from the obligation of allegiance, and
Christian princes were summoned to execute the sentence
and take the crown. Gregory VII. had resorted to the same
precarious measure with Henry IV. and been defeated. The
bull was published at Soissons by Langton and the exiled
bishops. Philip of France was quick to respond to the
summons and collected an army. But the success of the
English fleet checked the fear of an immediate invasion of
the realm.
The nation's suspense, however, was taxed almost beyond
the point of endurance. The king's arbitrary taxes and his
amours with the wives and daughters of the barons aroused
their determined hatred. Pressed from different sides, John
suddenly had a meeting at Dover with the pope's special
envoy, the subdeacon Pandulf. 2 The hermit, Peter of Wake-
field, had predicted that within three days of Ascension
Day the king would cease to reign. Perhaps not without
dread of the prediction, and not without irony to checkmate
the plans of the French monarch, John gave in his submis-
1 Another example of John's unspeakable cruelty was his treatment of a
rich Jew of Bristol upon whom he had made a demand for 10,000 marks.
On his refusing, John ordered ten teeth to be taken out, one each day. The
executioner dentist began with the molars. The sufferer held out till he had
been served this way seven times. He then yielded, giving up the money,
which, as Matthew Paris says, he might have done seven days before, thus
saving himself all his agony. Luard's ed., II. 528.
2 Shakespeare is responsible for the popular mistake which makes Pandulf
a cardinal. King John, Act III. Sc. 1. He served as legate in England,
1217-1221. The official documents call him "subdeacon and familiar to our
lord the pope Innocent."
170 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
sion, and on May 15, 1213, on bended knee, delivered up to
Pandulf his kingdom and consented to receive it back again
as a papal fief. Five months later the act was renewed in
the presence of Nicolas, cardinal-archbishop of Tusculum,
who had been sent to England with legatine authority. In
the document which John signed and swore to keep, he
blasphemously represented himself as imitating him " who
humbled himself for us even unto death." This notorious
paper ran as follows :
" We do freely offer and grant to God and the holy Apostles Peter and
Paul and the holy Roman Church, our mother, and to our Lord the pope
Innocent and his Catholic successors, the whole realm of England and the
whole realm of Ireland with all their rights and appurtenances for the remis-
sion of our sins and those of all our race, as well quick as dead ; and from
now receiving back and holding these, as a feudal dependant, from God and
the Roman Church, do and swear fealty for them to our Lord the pope Inno-
cent and his Catholic successors and the Roman Church." l
John bound himself and England for all time to pay, in
addition to the usual Peter's pence, 1000 marks annually
to the Apostolic see, 700 for England and 300 for Ireland.
The king's signature was witnessed by the archbishop of
Dublin, the bishop of Norwich, and eleven noblemen. John
also promised to reimburse the outlawed bishops, the amount
finally settled upon being 40,000 marks.
Rightly does Matthew Paris call this the "detestable
and lamentable charter." 2 But although national abasement
could scarcely further go, it is probable that the sense of
shame with which after generations have regarded John's
act was only imperfectly felt by that generation of English-
men. 3 As a political measure it succeeded, bringing as it
1 Potthast, 416. The Latin in Matthew Paris, Luard's ed. II. 541-546 ;
a translation is given by Gee and Hardy, 75-79.
2 IV. 479, carta detestabilis quam lacrimabilis memoriae Johannes infe-
liciter confecit.
8 Henry II. had become the feudatory of Alexander III., and Richard L,
after resigning his crown to the emperor, had held it for the payment of a
yearly rent. Lingard offers extenuating considerations for John's surrender,
which, however, he denominates " certainly a disgraceful act."
40. INNOCENT AND MAGNA CHARTA. 171
did keen disappointment to the warlike king of France. The
interdict was revoked in 1214, after having been in force
more than six years.
The victory of Innocent was complete. But in after years
the remembrance of the dishonorable transaction encouraged
steadfast resistance to the papal rule in England. The voice
of Robert Grosseteste was lifted up against it, and Wyclif
became champion of the king who refused to be bound by
John's pledge. Writing to one of John's successors, the
emperor Frederick II. called upon him to remember the
humiliation of his predecessor John and with other Christian
princes resist the intolerable encroachments of the Apostolic
see.
40. Innocent and Magna Charta.
An original manuscript of the Magna Charta, shrivelled with
age and fire, but still showing the royal seal, is preserved in the
British Museum. A facsimile is given in the official edition of
the /Statutes of the Realm. Stubls gives the Latin text in Se-
lect Charters, etc., 296-306.
In his treatment of the Great Charter, the venerable in-
strument of English popular rights, Innocent, with monar-
chical instinct, turned to the side of John and against the
cause of popular liberty. Stephen Langton, who had released
John from the ban of excommunication, espoused the popu-
lar cause, thereby incurring the condemnation of the pope.
The agreement into which the barons entered to resist the
king's despotism was treated by him with delay and subter-
fuge. Rebellion and civil war followed. As he had before
been unscrupulous in his treatment of the Church, so now to
win support he made fulsome religious promises he probably
had no intention of keeping. To the clergy he granted free-
dom of election in the case of all prelates, greater and less.
He also made a vow to lead a crusade. After the battle of
Bouvines, John found himself forced to return to England,
172 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
and was compelled by the organized strength of the barons
to meet them at Runny mede, an island in the Thames near
Windsor, where he signed and swore to keep the Magna
Charta, June 15, 1215.
This document, with the Declaration of Independence,
the most important contract in the civil history of the Eng-
lish-speaking peoples, meant defined law as against uncertain
tradition and the arbitrary will of the monarch. It was the
first act of the people, nobles, and Church in combination, a
compact of Englishmen with the king. By it the sovereign
agreed that justice should be denied or delayed to no one, and
that trial should be by the peers of the accused. No taxes
were to be levied without the vote of the common council
of the realm, whose meetings were fixed by rule. The single
clause bearing directly upon the Church confirmed the free-
dom of ecclesiastical elections.
After his first paroxysms of rage, when he gnawed sticks
and straw like a madman, 1 John called to his aid Innocent, on
the ground that he had attached his seal under compulsion.
In fact, he had yielded to the barons with no intention of
keeping his oath. The pope made the fatal mistake of taking
sides with perjured royalty against the reasonable demands
of the nation. In two bulls 2 he solemnly released John from
his oath, declaring that " the enemy of the human race had,
by his crafty arts, excited the barons against him." He
asserted that the " wicked audacity of the barons tended to
the contempt of the Apostolic see, the detriment of kingly
prerogative, the disgrace of the English nation, and the en-
dangering of the cross." He praised John for his Christian
submission to the will of the supreme head of Christendom,
and the pledge of annual tribute, and for his vow to lead
a crusade. As for the document itself, he " utterly repro-
bated and condemned it" as "a low and base instrument, yea,
truly wicked and deserving to be reprobated by all, especially
1 M. Paris, Luard's ed. II. 611. a Aug. 24, 1215, Potthast, 435.
40. INNOCENT AND MAGNA CHARTA. 173
because the king's assent was secured by force." 1 Upon
pain of excommunication he forbade its observance by the
king, and pronounced it "null and void for all time." 2
The sentence of excommunication which Innocent fulmi-
nated against the refractory barons, Langton refused to pub-
lish. For his disobedience the pope suspended him from his
office, Nov. 4, 1215, and he was not allowed to resume
it till 1219, when Innocent had been in his grave three years.
London, which supported the popular cause, was placed
under the interdict, and the prelates of England who took
the popular side Innocent denounced " as worse than Sara-
cens, worse than those open enemies of the cross." 3
The barons, in self-defence, called upon the Dauphin of
France to accept the crown. He landed in England,
but was met by the papal ban. 4 During the struggle
Innocent died, but his policy was continued by his successor.
Three months later, Oct. 19, 1216, John died at Newark,
1 Compositionen hujusmodi reprobamus penitus et damnamus . . . com-
positio non solum sit vilis et turpis, verum etiam illicita et iniqua ut
merito sit ab omnibus reprobanda. M. Paris, Luard's ed., II. 619 sq. Another
ground given by Innocent for annulling the document was that he as Eng-
land's overlord had not been consulted before the king's signature was
attached.
2 The language is the strongest : tarn cartam quam obligationes . . . irri-
tantes penitus et cassantes, ut nullo unquam tempore aliquam habeant firmi-
tatem. M. Paris, Luard's ed. II. 619. See Hurter, 11.656 sq. Some excuse
has been found by advocates of papal infallibility for this fierce sentence upon
the ground that Innocent was condemning the mode by which the king's con-
sent was obtained. Innocent adduces three considerations, the conspiracy of
the barons to force the king, their disregard of his Crusading vow, and the neg-
lect of all parties to consult the pope as overlord. He condemns, it is true, the
document as a document, and it has been said the contents were not aimed at.
Innocent's mistake and official offence were that, passing by entirely, the
merits of the Charter, he should have espoused the despotism of the iniquitous
king.
8 Potthast, 437 ; M. Paris, in Luard, II. 627. About the same time at
John's request, Innocent annulled the election of Simon Langton, Stephen's
brother, to the see of York.
* Thomas Fuller remarks that "the commonness of these curses caused
them to be contemned, so that they were a fright to few, a mock to many,
and a hurt to none."
174 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
after suffering the loss of his goods in crossing the Wash.
He was thrown into a fever, but the probable cause of his
death was excess in eating and drinking. 1 He was buried at his
own request in Worcester cathedral. In his last moments
he received the sacrament and commended his children to
the protection of the pope, who had stood by him in his
last conflict.
41. The Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.
LITERATURE. Works of Innocent, Migne, 217. MANSI, xxii. LABBJEUS,
xi. POTTHAST, Regesta, I. 437 sqq., gives a summary of the canons
of the council. HEFELE-KNOPFLER, V. 872 sqq. HURTER, II. 538
sqq. LEA : Hist, of the Inquisition, passim.
The Fourth Laterau, otherwise known as the Twelfth
(Ecumenical Council, was the closing act of Innocent's pon-
tificate, and marks the zenith of the papal theocracy. In his
letter of convocation, 2 the pope announced its object to be
the reconquest of Palestine and the betterment of the
Church. The council was held in the Lateran and had three
sittings, Nov. 11, 20, 30, 1215. It was the most largely
attended of the synods held up to that time in the West.
The attendance included 412 bishops, 800 abbots and priors,
and a large number of delegates representing absent prelates.
There were also present representatives of the emperor
Frederick II., the emperor Henry of Constantinople, and the
1 Roger of Wendover says he surfeited himself with peaches and new
cider. M. Paris, Luard's ed., II. 667. Shakespeare, following a later tradi-
tion, represents him as dying of poison administered by a monk :
" The king, I fear is poisoned by a monk,
*******
It is too late ; the life of all his blood
Is touched corruptibly ; and his pure brain
(Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house)
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality."
King John. Act V. Sc. 6 sq.
9 April 19, 1213.
41. THE FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL. 175
kings of England, France, Aragon, Hungary, Jerusalem, and
other crowned heads. 1
The sessions were opened with a sermon by the pope on
Luke 22 : 15, " With desire have I desired to eat this pass-
over with you before I suffer." It was a fanciful interpre-
tation of the word "passover," to which a threefold sense was
given : a physical sense referring to the passage of Jerusalem
from a state of captivity to a state of liberty, a spiritual
sense referring to the passage of the Church from one state
to a better one, and a heavenly sense referring to the transi-
tion from the present life to the eternal glory. The deliv-
erances are grouped under seventy heads, and a special
decree bearing upon the recovery of Jerusalem. The head-
ings concern matters of doctrine and ecclesiastical and moral
practice. The council's two most notable acts were the
definition of the dogma of transubstantiation and the
establishment of the institution of the Inquisition against
heretics.
The doctrinal decisions, contained in the first two chap-
ters, give a comprehensive statement of the orthodox faith as
it concerns the nature of God, the Incarnation, the unity of
the Church, and the two greater sacraments. Here transub-
stantiation is defined as the doctrine of the eucharist in the
universal Church, " outside of which there is no possibility
of salvation." 2
The council expressly condemned the doctrine of Joachim
of Flore, that the substance of the Father, Son, and Spirit
is not a real entity, but a collective entity in the sense that
a collection of men is called one people, and a collection of
1 The invitation included the prelates of the East and West, Christian
emperors and kings, the grand-masters of the Military Orders, and the heads
of monastic establishments.
2 In qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacrificium Jesus Christus, cujus corpus et
sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continen-
tur, transubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem, etc. Mansi,
XXII. 982 ; Mirbt, Quellen, 133.
176 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
believers one Church. It approved the view of Peter the
Lombard whom Joachim had opposed on the ground that his
definition would substitute a quaternity for the trinity in
the Godhead. 1
Amaury of Bena, a teacher in Paris accused of pan-
theistic teachings, was also condemned by name. He had
been accused and appeared before the pope at Rome in 1204,
and recalled his alleged heresy. 2 He or his scholars taught
that every one in whom the Spirit of God is, becomes united
with the body of Christ and cannot sin.
The treatment of heretics received elaborate considera-
tion in the important third decree. 3 The ecclesiastical and
moral regulations were the subject of sixty-seven decrees.
The rank of the patriarchal sees is fixed, Rome having the
first place. 4 It was an opportune moment for an array of
these dignitaries, as Innocent had established a Latin succes-
sion in the Eastern patriarchates which had not already been
filled by his predecessors. To avoid the confusion arising
from the diversity of monastic rules, the establishment of
monastic orders was thenceforth forbidden. 6
The clergy are warned against intemperance and incon-
tinence and forbidden the chase, hunting dogs and falcons,
attendance upon theatrical entertainments, and executions,
duelling, and frequenting inns. Prescriptions are given
for their dress. Confession is made compulsory at least
once a year, and imprisonment fixed as the punishment
of priests revealing the secrets of the confessional. The
tenure of more than one benefice is forbidden except by the
1 The Lombard had defined the substance of the three persons as a real
entity, quondam summa res.
8 See Hauck, art. Amalrich, in Herzog, I. 432 sq.
8 See chapters on the Inquisition and the Cathari.
* The patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople, of the Latin succession,
were conspicuous at the council, and also Antioch by a representative, the
Melchisite patriarch of Alexandria, and the Maronite patriarch.
6 Chapter XIII.
41. THE FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL. 177
pope's dispensation. New relics are forbidden as objects of
worship, except as they might receive the approbation of the
pope. Physicians are bidden, upon threat of excommunica-
tion, to urge their patients first of all to summon a priest, as
the well-being of the soul is of more value than the health
of the body. Jews and Saracens are enjoined to wear a dif-
ferent dress from the Christians, lest unawares carnal inter-
course be had between them. The Jews are bidden to keep
within doors during passion week and excluded from hold-
ing civil office. 1
The appointment of a new crusade was the council's last
act, and it was set to start in 1217. Christians were com-
manded to refrain from all commercial dealings with the
Saracens for four years. To all contributing to the crusade,
as well as to those participating in it, full indulgence was
promised, and added eternal bliss. 2 Another important
matter which was settled, as it were in a committee room of
the council, was the appeal of Raymund VI., count of Tou-
louse, for redress from the rapacity of Simon de Montfort,
the fierce leader of the crusade against the Albigenses in
Southern France.
The doctrinal statements and ecclesiastical rules bear
witness to the new conditions upon which the Church had
entered, the Latin patriarchs being in possession in the East,
and heresy threatening its unity in Southern France and
other parts of the West.
Innocent III. survived the great council only a few months
and died scarcely fifty-six years old, without having outlived
his authority or his fame. He had been fortunate in all his
undertakings. The acts of statecraft, which brought Europe
to his feet, were crowned in the last scene at the Lateran
1 A repetition of the decrees of the synod of Toledo, 581.
2 Plenam suorum peccaminum de quibus fuerint corde contriti et ore con-
fessi veniam inditlyemus et in retributions justorum sahitis eternce polli-
cemur augrnentum.
N
178 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
Council by the pious concern of the priest. To his succes-
sors he bequeathed a continent united in allegiance to the
Holy See and a Church strengthened in its doctrinal unity.
Notwithstanding his great achievements combining mental
force and moral purpose, the Church has found no place for
Innocent among its canonized saints.
The following are a few testimonies to his greatness :
Gregorovius declares 1 that, although he was
"Not a creative genius like Gregory I. and Gregory VII., he was one of the
most important figures of the Middle Ages, a man of earnest, sterling, austere
intellect, a consummate ruler, a statesman of penetrating judgment, a high-
minded priest filled with religious fervor, and at the same time with an
unbounded ambition and appalling force of will, a true idealist on the papal
throne, yet an entirely practical monarch and a cool-headed lawyer. ... No
pope has ever had so lofty and yet so real consciousness of his power as Inno-
cent III., the creator and destroyer of emperors and kings."
Rankesays : 2
"A superstitious reverence such asFriedrich Hurter renders to him in his
remarkable book I am not at all able to accord. Thus much, however, is cer-
tain. He stands in the foremost rank of popes, having world-wide significance.
The task which he placed before himself he was thoroughly equal to. Leav-
ing out a few dialectic subtleties, one will not find in him anything that is
really small. In him was fulfilled the transition of the times."
Baur gives this opinion : 3
" With Innocent III. the papacy reached its height and in no other period
of its long history did it enjoy such an undisturbed peace and such a glorious
development of its power and splendor. He was distinguished as no other in
this high place not only by all the qualities of the ruler but by personal vir-
tues, by high birth and also by mind, culture, and learning." 4
1 V : 102 sq. Gibbon, ch. LIX, after acknowledging Innocent's talents
and virtues, has this criticism of two of the most far-reaching acts of his
reign : " Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and
humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin of the In-
quisition."
2 Weltgeschichte, viii : 334.
8 Geschichte des Mittelalters, p. 220.
4 For judgments of mediaeval authors, see Potthast, Eegesta, 461. The
contemporaneous author of the Gesta Innocentii, Migne, 214, p. xviii., thus
describes Innocent: "Fuit vir perspicacis ingenii et tenacis memorise, in divinis
et humanis litteris eruditus, sermone tarn vulgar! quam litterali disertus, ex-
ercitatus in cantilena et psalmodia, statura mediocris et decprus aspectu,
41. THE FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL. 179
Hagenbach: 1
" Measured by the standard of the papacy, Innocent is beyond controversy
the greatest of all the popes. Measured by the eternal law of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, that which here seems great and mighty in the eyes of the world,
seems little in the kingdom of heaven, and amongst those things which call
forth wonder and admiration, only that will stand which the Spirit of God,
who never wholly withdraws from the Church, wrought in his soul. How far
such operation went on, and with what result, who but God can know ? He
alone is judge."
medius inter prodigalitatem et avaritiam, sed in eleemosynis et victualibus
magis largus, et in aliis magis parcus, nisi cum necessitatis articulus exigebat
severus contra rebelles et contumaces, sed benignus erga humiles et devotos ;
fortis et stabilis, magnanimus et astutus ; fldei defensor, et hseresis expugna-
tor ; in justitia rigidus, sed in misericordia plus ; humilis in prosperis, et pa-
tiens in adversis ; naturae tarn en aliquantulum indignantis, sed facile igno-
scentis."
1 Kir cheng eschichte des Mittelalters, ch. XIX.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PAPACY FROM THE DEATH OF INNOCENT III. TO
BONIFACE VIII. 1216-1294.
LITERATURE: The Chronicles of this period, e.g. M. PARIS, ed. by LUARD
the Franciscan SALIMBENE, ed. by A. BERTANI, Parma, 1857 ; Engl. trans.
by COULTON, Lond., 1906. RICHARD A ST. GERMANO : chronicon rerum
per orbem gestarum, 1189-1243 ; the chronicon Placentinum and chron. de
rebus in Italia gestis, ed. by HUILLARD-BKEHOLLES, Paris, 1856. For
Honorius III., Opera omnia, ed. by HORAY in Medii cevi bibliotheca patris-
tica, I.-V., Paris, 1879-1883, and Begesta, ed. by the order of Leo XIII., by
P. PRESUTTI, Rome, 1888, 1 vol. For Gregory IX., Opera omnia, Antwerp,
1572. Fifteen volumes of Gregory's letters are in MS. in the Vatican : Les
Eegistres de Gregoire IX., 1227-1235, Eecueil des bulles publiees
d'apres les MSS. originaux du Vatican par L. AUVRAY, Paris, 1896.
For Innocent IV., Begistres d' Innocent IV., ed. by E. BERGER, 3 vols.
Paris, 1884-1897. The Begesta of POTTHAST and BOHMER. Lives of the
Popes, in Muratori (two), and by PLATINA. MANSI : Councils, XXIII.
C. HOFLER : Kaiser Friedrich II., Munich, 1844. ED. WINKEL-
MANN : Gesch. Kaisers Friedrichs II., etc., 2 vols., Berlin and Reval, 1863-
1865. T. L. KINGTON : Hist, of Fred. II., Emp. of the Eomans, 2 vols.,
London, 1862. F. W. SCHIRRMACHER : Kaiser Fried. II., 3 vols. Gotting.,
1859-1865. HUILLARD-BREHOLLES : Historia diplomatics Friderici II.,
etc., 6 vols., two parts each, Paris, 1852-1861. A great work. Vol. I.
gives the life of Frederick, the other volumes documents. HUILLARD-
BREHOLLES : Vie et correspondance de la Vigne, ministre de Vempereur
Fred. II., Paris, 1866. E. WINKELMANN : Kaiser Friedrich II., 2 vols.
Leipzig, 1896 sq. P. BALAN : Storia di Gregorio IX. e di suoi tempi, 3
vols., Modena, 1872 sq. CHAMBRIER : Die letzten Hohenstaufen u.das
Papstthum, Basel, 1876. RAUMER : Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, 5th ed.,
Leipzig, 1878. Vol. V. J. ZELLER : Uemp. Fred. II. et la chute de
Vemp. Germ, du moyen age, Paris, 1885. J. FELTEN : Papst Gregor IX.,
Freib. im Br., 1886. Uoo BALZANI : The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,
London, 1888. C. KOHLER : D. Verhaltniss Fried. II. zu den Papsten
seiner Zeit., Breslau, 1888. J. CLAUSEN : Papst Honorius III., Bonn,
1895. H. FISHE.R : Tlie Mediaeval Empire, 2 vols. London, 1898. F.
FEHLING: Fried. II. und die romischen Kardinale, Berlin, 1901. H.
KRABBO : Die Besetzung der deutschen Bisthiimer unter der Begierung
Kaiser Fried. //., 1212-1250, Berlin, 1901. TH. FRANZ: Der grow
180
42. THE PAPAL CONFLICT WITH FREDERICK II. Ibl
Kampf zwischen Kaiserthum und Papstthum zur Zeit des Hohenstanfen,
Fried. II., Berlin, 1903. Not important. W. KNEBEL : Kaiser Fried. II.
undPapst Honorius III., 1220-1227, Miinster, 1905, pp. 151. HEFELE,
V. WATTENBACH, 196-211. GREGOROVIUS, V. RANKE, VIII.
FREEMAN : The Emp. Fred. II. in his Hist. Essays, 1st series, pp. 283-
313, London, 1871. Art. Fred. II., by FUNK, in Wetzer-Welte, IV.
2029-2035, and arts, in Herzog, Gregory IX., by MIRBT, and Honorius
HI., and Innocent IV., by SCHULZ, with the copious lit. there given.
Also, Das Briefbuch des Thomas von Gasta, Justitiars Fried. II. in
Quellen u. Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Sibliotheken,
Rome, 1895.
42. The Papal Conflict with Frederick II. Begun.
BETWEEN the death of Innocent III. and the election of
Boniface VIII., a period of eighty years, sixteen popes sat
on the throne, several of whom were worthy successors of
the greatest of the pontiffs. The earlier half of the period,
1216-1250, was filled with the gigantic struggle between
the papacy and Frederick II., emperor of Germany and king
of Sicily. The latter half, 1250-1294, was marked by the
establishment of peace between the papacy and empire, and
the dominance of the French, or Norman, influence over the
papacy.
Scarcely was Innocent in his grave when Frederick II.
began to play his distinguished role, and to engage the
papacy in its last great struggle with the empire a desperate
struggle, as it proved to be, in which the empire was at last
completely humbled. The struggle kept Europe in turmoil
for nearly forty years, and was waged with three popes,
Honorius III., Gregory IX., and Innocent IV., the last two,
men of notable ability. During all this time Frederick was
the most conspicuous figure in Christendom. The struggle
was carried on not only in the usual ways of diplomacy and
arms, but by written appeals to the court of European opinion.
Frederick II., the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, was
born near Ancona, 1194. His father, Henry VI., had joined
Sicily to the empire by his marriage with the Norman prin-
182 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
cess Constance, through whom Frederick inherited the
warm blood of the South. By preference and training, as
well as birth, he was a thorough Italian. He tarried on
German soil only long enough to insure his crown and to
put down the rebellion of his son. 1 He preferred to hold his
court at Palermo, which in his letters he called " the Happy
City." The Romans elected him king in 1196, and at his
father's death a year later he became king of Sicily. The
mother soon followed, and by her will "the child of Apulia,"
as Frederick was called, a boy then in his fourth year, passed
under the guardian care of Innocent III. After Otto's star
had set, he was crowned king at Frankfurt, 1212, and at
Aachen, 1215. Frederick was not twenty when Innocent's
career came to an end.
Honorius III., 1216-1227, was without the ambition or
genius of his predecessor Innocent III. He confirmed the
rules and witnessed the extraordinary growth of the two great
mendicant orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic. He
crowned Peter of Courtenay, emperor of Byzantium, the
only Byzantine emperor to receive his crown in Rome. 2 The
pope's one passion was the deliverance of Jerusalem. ' To
accomplish this, he was forced to look to Frederick. To in-
duce him to fulfil the vow made at his coronation, in 1215,
to lead a crusade, was the main effort of his pontificate.
The year 1217, the date set for the crusade to start, passed
by. Honorius fixed date after date with Frederick, but the
emperor had other plans and found excuses for delay. In
1220 he and his wife Constantia received the imperial crown
at the hands of the pope in Rome. 3 For the second time
1 Ranke, VIII. 337, calls him a foreigner on German soil.
2 The coronation took place outside the walls of the city. Peter died in
prison on his way to Constantinople.
8 The coronation ceremonies passed off amidst the general good will of the
Roman populace and were interrupted by a single disturbance, a dispute over
a dog between the ambassadors of Florence and Pisa which ultimately involved
the cities in war. Villani, VI. 2.
42. THE PAPAL CONFLICT WITH FREDERICK II. 183
Frederick took the cross. He also seemed to give proof of
piety by ratifying the privileges of the Church, announcing
his determination to suppress heresy, and exempting all
churches and clerics from taxation. In the meantime his
son Henry had been elected king of the Romans, and by that
act and the pope's subsequent ratification the very thing was
accomplished which it had been Innocent's shrewd policy to
prevent ; namely, the renewal of the union of the empire and
the kingdom of Sicily in one hand. Frederick was pursuing
his own course, but to appease Honorius he renewed the
pledge whereby Sicily was to remain a fief of the papal see.
The fall of Damietta, 1 in 1221, was adapted to fire a sincere
crusader's zeal ; but Frederick was too much engaged in
pleasure and absorbed in his scheme for extending his power
in Italy to give much attention to the rescue of the holy
places. In hope of inflaming his zeal and hastening the
departure of the crusade, Honorius encouraged the emperor's
marriage with lolanthe, daughter of John of Brienne, king of
Jerusalem, and heiress of the crown. 2 The nuptials were no
sooner celebrated than Frederick assumed the title of king
of Jerusalem; but he continued to show no sign of making
haste. His aggravating delays were enough to wear out a
more amiable disposition than even Honorius possessed. A
final agreement was made between them in 1225, which gave the
emperor a respite of two years more, and he swore upon penalty
of excommunication to set forth October, 1227. Four months
before the date appointed for the crusade Honorius died.
The last year of Honorius's reign, Frederick entered openly
upon the policy which involved him in repeated wars with
the papacy and the towns of Northern Italy. He renewed the
imperial claims to the Lombard cities. Upon these claims
1 Damietta, an important harbor in Egypt, had been chosen by the cru-
saders as their base of operations against Jerusalem and the point from
which Jerusalem was to be reached.
2 On the ground that lolanthe was immediate heir to the crown through
her mother.
184 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
the Apostolic see could not look with complacency, for, if re-
alized, they would have made Frederick the sovereign of Italy
and cramped the temporal power of the papacy within a lim-
ited and at best an uncertain area.
43. Gregory IX. and Frederick II. 1227-1241.
An antagonist of different metal was Gregory IX., 1227-
1241. Innocent III., whose nephew he was, seemed to have
risen again from the grave in him. Although in years he was
more than twice as old as the emperor, 1 Gregory was clearly
his match in vigor of mind and dauntless bravery, and greatly
his superior in moral purpose. In asserting the exorbitant
claims of the papacy he was not excelled by any of the popes.
He was famed for eloquence and was an expert in the canon law.
Setting aside Frederick's spurious pretexts for delaying
the crusade, Gregory in the first days of his pontificate in-
sisted upon his fulfilling his double pledge made at his corona-
tion in 1215 and his coronation as emperor in Rome, 1220. 2
Frederick at last seemed ready to comply. The crusaders
assembled at Brindisi, and Frederick actually set off to sea
accompanied by the pope's prayers. Within three days of
leaving port the expedition returned, driven back by an
epidemic, as Frederick asserted, or by Frederick's love of
pleasure, as Gregory maintained.
The pope's disappointment knew no bounds. He pro-
nounced against Frederick the excommunication threatened
by Honorius. 3 As the sentence was being read in the church
at Anagni, the clergy dashed their lighted tapers to the
1 His exact age is not known. M. Paris, Luard's ed., IV. 162; Giles's
trans. , I. 383, says that at the time of his death he was almost a centenarian
(fere centenarius).
2 Frederick had received the cross at his coronation in Rome from the hand
of Gregory, then Cardinal Ugolino.
8 "The English chronicler," speaking of the pope's act, uses his favorite
expression, "that he might not be like a dog unable to bark" (ne cam's
videretur non valens latrare). Luard's ed., M. Paris, III. 145 ; Giles's trans,
of Roger of Wendover, II. 499.
43. GREGORY IX. AND FREDERICK II. 185
floor to indicate the emperor's going o.ut into darkness.
Gregory justified his action in a letter to the Christian
princes, and spoke of Frederick as " one whom the Holy See
had educated with much care, suckled at its breast, carried on
its shoulders, and whom it has frequently rescued from the
hands of those seeking his life, whom it has brought up to
perfect manhood at much trouble and expense, exalted to the
honors of kingly dignity, and finally advanced to the sum-
mit of the imperial station, trusting to have him as a wand
of defence and the staff of our old age." He declared
the plea of the epidemic a frivolous pretence and charged
Frederick with evading his promises, casting aside all fear of
God, having no respect for Jesus Christ. Heedless of the
censures of the Church, and enticed away to the usual pleas-
ures of his kingdom, he had abandoned the Christian army
and left the Holy Land exposed to the infidels. 1
In a vigorous counter appeal to Christendom, Frederick
made a bold protest against the unbearable assumption of
the papacy, and pointed to the case of John of England as a
warning to princes of what they might expect. " She who
calls herself my mother," he wrote, " treats me like a step-
mother." He denounced the secularization of the Church,
and called upon the bishops and clergy to cultivate the self-
denial of the Apostles.
In 1228 the excommunication was repeated and places put
under the interdict where the emperor might be. Gregory
was not without his own troubles at Rome, from which he
was compelled to flee and seek refuge at Perugia.
The same year, as if to show his independence of papal
dictation and at the same time the sincerity of his crusading
purpose, the emperor actually started upon a crusade, usually
called the Fifth Crusade. On being informed of the expedi-
tion, the pope excommunicated him for the third time and
inhibited the patriarch of Jerusalem and the Military Orders
1 Luard's ed., M. Paris, III, 145 sq. See Eegistres, p. 107.
186 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
from giving him aid. The expedition was successful in spite
of the papal malediction, and entering Jerusalem Frederick
crowned himself king in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Thus we have the singular spectacle of the chief monarch of
Christendom conducting a crusade in fulfilment of a vow to
two popes while resting under the solemn ban of a third.
Yea, the second crusader who entered the Holy City as a
conqueror, and the last one to do so, was at the time not only
resting under a triple ban, but was excommunicated a fourth
time on his return from his expedition to Europe. He was
excommunicated for not going, he was excommunicated for
going, and he was excommunicated on coming back, though
it was not in disgrace but in triumph.
The emperor's troops bearing the cross were met on their
return to Europe by the papal army whose banners were in-
scribed with the keys. Frederick's army was victorious.
Diplomacy, however, prevailed, and emperor and pope dined
together at Anagni (Sept. 1, 1230) and arranged a treaty.
The truce lasted four years, Gregory in the meantime
composing, with the emperor's help, his difficulties with the
municipality of Rome. Again he addressed Frederick as
"his beloved son in Christ." But formal terms of endear-
ment did not prevent the renewal of the conflict, this time
over Frederick's resolution to force his authority upon the
Lombard cities. This struggle engaged him in war with the
papacy from this time forward to his death, 1235-1250. After
crushing the rebellion of his son Henry in the North, and
seeing his second son Conrad crowned, the emperor hastened
south to subdue Lombardy. 1 " Italy," he wrote in answer to
the pope's protests, 1236, " Italy is my heritage, as all the
world well knows." His arms seemed to be completely suc-
1 Henry died in an Italian prison. Conrad, whose mother was lolanthe,
was nine years old at the time of his coronation. In 1235 Frederick married
for the third time Isabella, sister of Henry III. of England. This marriage
explains Frederick's repeated appeals to the clergy and people of England.
43. GREGORY IX. AND FREDERICK II. 187
cessful by the battle of Cortenuova, 1237. But Gregory
abated none of his opposition. " Priests are fathers and
masters of kings and princes," he wrote, "and to them is
given authority over men's bodies as well as over their souls."
It was his policy to thwart at all hazards Frederick's designs
upon upper Italy, which he wanted to keep independent of
Sicily as a protection to the papal state. The accession of
the emperor's favorite son Enzio to the throne of Sardinia,
through his marriage with the princess Adelasia, was a new
cause of offence to Gregory. 1 For Sardinia was regarded as
a papal fief, and the pope had not been consulted in the
arrangements leading to the marriage. And so for the fifth
time, in 1239, Gregory pronounced upon the emperor the
anathema. 2 The sentence charged him with stirring up
sedition against the Church in Rome from which Gregory had
been forced to flee in the conflicts between the Ghibelline and
Guelf parties, with seizing territory belonging to the Holy
See, and with violence towards prelates and benefices. 3
A conflict with the pen followed which has a unique place
in the history of the papacy. Both parties made appeal to pub-
lic opinion, a thing which was novel up to that time. The pope
compared 4 the emperor to the beast in the Book of Revela-
tion which "rose out of the sea full of words of blasphemy
and had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion, and like
a leopard in its other parts, opens its mouth in blasphemies
against God's name, his dwelling place, and the saints in
heaven. This beast strives to grind everything to pieces
with his claws and teeth of iron and to trample with his feet
on the universal world." He accused Frederick of lies and
1 Potthast, p. 952 ; Huillard-Br^holles, VI. 1, 136.
2 In view of these repeated fulminations it is no wonder that the papal
legate, Albert of Bohemia, wrote from Bavaria that the clergy did not care
a bean (fdba) for the sentence of excommunication. Huillard-Breholles,
V. 1032 ; Potthast, 908.
8 The document is given in full in M. Paris, Luard's ed., III. 553 sq.
* Brgholles, V. 327-340 ; Paris, III. 590-608.
188 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
perjuries, and called him " the son of lies, heaping falsehood
on falsehood, robber, blasphemer, a wolf in sheep's clothing,
the dragon emitting waters of persecution from his mouth like
a river." He made the famous declaration that " as the king
of pestilence, Frederick had openly asserted that the world
had been deceived by three impostors, 1 Jesus, Moses, and
Mohammed, two of these having died in glory and Jesus hav-
ing been suspended on the cross. Moreover, he had denied
the possibility of God's becoming incarnate of a virgin." 2
This extensive document is, no doubt, one of the most
vehement personal fulrninations which has ever proceeded
from Rome. Epithets could go no further. It is a proof of
the great influence of Frederick's personality and the grow-
ing spirit of democracy in the Italian cities that the emperor
was not wholly shunned by all men and crushed under the
dead weight of such fearful condemnations.
In his retort, 3 not to be behind his antagonist in Scripture
quotations, Frederick compared Gregory to the rider on the
red horse who destroyed peace on the earth. As the pope
had called him a beast, bestia, so he would call him a wild
beast, belua, antichrist, a second Balaam, who used the pre-
rogative of blessing and cursing for money. He declared
that, as God had placed the greater and lesser lights in the
heavens, so he had placed the priesthood, sacerdotium, and
the empire, imperium, on the earth. But the pope had
sought to put the second light into eclipse by denying the
purity of Frederick's faith and comparing him to the beast
rising out of the sea. Indignantly denying the accusation
of the three impostors, he declared his faith in the "only
1 The charge is made in an encyclical of Gregory sent forth between
May 21 and July 1, 1239.
a Iste rex pestilentiae a tribus barotoribus, ut ejus verbis utamur, scilicet
Christo Jesu, Moyse et Mohameto totum mundum fuisse deceptum, et duobus
eorum in gloria mortuis, ipsum Jesum in ligno suspensum manifeste propo-
ne ns, etc.
8 Br^holles, V. 348 sqq.
43. GREGORY IX. AND FREDERICK II. 189
Son of God as coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
begotten from the beginning of all worlds. Mohammed's
body is suspended in the air, but his soul is given over to
the torments of hell."
Gregory went further than words and offered to the count
of Artois the imperial crown, which at the instance of his
brother, Louis IX. of France, the count declined. The Ger-
man bishops espoused Frederick's cause. On the other hand,
the mendicant friars proved true allies of the pope. The
emperor drove the papal army behind the walls of Rome.
In spite of enemies within the city, the aged pontiff went
forth from the Lateran in solemn procession, supplicating
deliverance and accompanied by all the clergy, carrying the
heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul. 1 When Frederick
retreated, it seemed as if the city had been delivered by a
miracle. However untenable we may regard the assump-
tions of the Apostolic see, we cannot withhold admiration
from the brave old pope.
Only one source of possible relief was left to Gregory, a
council of the whole Church, and this he summoned to meet
in Rome in 1241. Frederick was equal to the emergency,
and with the aid of his son Enzio checkmated the pope by a
manoeuvre which, serious as it was for Gregory, cannot fail
to appeal to the sense of the ludicrous. The Genoese fleet
conveying the prelates to Rome, most of them from France,
Northern Italy, and Spain, was captured by Enzio, and the
would-be councillors, numbering nearly one hundred and in-
cluding Cardinal Otto, a papal legate, were taken to Naples
and held in prison. 2 In his letter of condolence to the
imprisoned dignitaries the pope represents them as awaiting
their sentence from the new Pharaoh. 3 Brilliant as was the
1 Breholles, V. 777 sqq.
2 M. Paris with his usual vivacity says, " They were heaped together like
pigs."
3 Breholles, V. 1120-1138 ; G. C. Macaulay gives a lively account of the pro-
ceeding in art. Capture of a General Council, Engl. Hist. Rev., 1891, pp. 1-17.
190 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
coup de main, it was destined to return to trouble the inventor.
And the indignity heaped by Frederick upon the prelates was
at a later time made a chief charge against him.
Gregory died in the summer of 1241, at an age greater
than the age of Leo XIII. at that pope's death. But he died,
as it were, with his armor on and with his face turned
towards his imperial antagonist, whose army at the time lay
within a few hours of the city. He had fought one of the
most strenuous conflicts of the Middle Ages. To the last
moment his intrepid courage remained unabated. A few
weeks before his death he wrote, in sublime confidence in the
papal prerogative : " Ye faithful, have trust in God and hear
his dispensations with patience. The ship of Peter will for a
while be driven through storms and between rocks, but soon,
and at a time unexpected, it will rise again above the foaming
billows and sail on unharmed, over the placid surface."
The Roman communion owes to Gregory IX. the collection
of decretals which became a part of its statute book. 1 He
made the Inquisition a permanent institution and saw it en-
forced in the city of Rome. He accorded the honors of
canonization to the founders of the mendicant orders, St.
Francis of Assisi and Dominic of Spain.
44. The First Council of Lyons and the Close of
Frederick's Career. 1241-1250.
ADDITIONAL LITERATURE. MANSI, XXIII. 605 sqq. ; HEFELE, V. 105 sqq.
C. RODENBERG : Inn. IV. und das Konigreich Sicilien, Halle, 1892.
H. WEBER : Der Kampf zwischen Inn. IV. und Fried. II. Berlin, 1900.
P. ALDINGER : Die Neubesetzung der deutschen Bisthumer unter Papst
Inn. IV., Leipzig, 1900. J. MAULBACH : Die Kardinale und ihre Politik
urn die Mitte des XIII. Jahrhunderts, 1243-1268, Bonn, 1902.
Gregory's successor, Coelestin IV., survived his election
less than three weeks. A papal vacancy followed, lasting
the unprecedented period of twenty months. The next
pope, Innocent IV., a Genoese, was an expert in the canon
1 See section on The Canon Law.
44. THE FIRST COUNCIL OF LYONS. 191
law and proved himself to be more than the equal of Freder-
ick in shrewdness and quickness of action. At his election
the emperor is reported to have exclaimed that among
the cardinals he had lost a friend and in the pope gained
an enemy. Frederick refused to enter into negotiations
looking to an agreement of peace until he should be released
from the ban. Innocent was prepared to take up Gregory's
conflict with great energy. All the weapons at the command
of the papacy were brought into requisition: excommunica-
tion, the decree of a general council, deposition, the elec-
tion of a rival emperor, and the active fomenting of rebellion
in Frederick's dominions. Under this accumulation of bur-
dens Frederick, like a giant, attempted to bear up, but in
vain. 1 All Western Christendom was about to be disturbed
by the conflict. Innocent's first move was to out-general
his antagonist by secretly leaving Rome. Alexander III.
had set the precedent of delivering himself by flight. In the
garb of a knight he reached Civita Vecchia, and there met
by a Genoese galley proceeded to Genoa, where he was re-
ceived with the ringing of bells and the acclamation, " Our
soul is escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler."
Joined by cardinals, he continued his journey to Lyons,
which, though nominally a city of the empire, was by reason
of its proximity to France a place of safe retreat.
The pope's policy proved to be a master stroke. A
deep impression in his favor was made upon the Christian
world by the sight of the supreme pontiff in exile. 2 The divi-
sion of European sentiment is shown by the method which
a priest of Paris resorted to in publishing Innocent's
sentence of excommunication against the emperor. " I am
not ignorant," he said, " of the serious controversy and un-
1 M. Paris says he had never heard of such bitter hatred as the hatred
between Innocent IV. and Frederick. Luard's ed., V. 193.
2 M. Paris, heretofore inclining to the side of Frederick, at this point dis-
tinctly changes his tone. See, for example, Luard's ed., IV. 478.
192 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
quenchable hatred that has arisen between the emperor and
the pope. I also know that one has done harm to the other,
but which is the offender I do not know. Him, however, as
far as my authority goes, I denounce and excommunicate,
that is, the one who harms the other, whichever of the two
it be, and I absolve the one which suffers under the injury
which is so hurtful to the cause of Christendom."
Innocent was now free to convoke again the council
which Frederick's forcible measures had prevented from
assembling in Rome. It is known as the First Council of
Lyons, or the Thirteenth (Ecumenical Council, and met
in Lyons, 1245. The measures the papal letter mentioned
as calling for action were the provision of relief for the
Holy Land and of resistance to the Mongols whose ravages
had extended to Hungary, and the settlement of matters
in dispute between the Apostolic see and the emperor.
One hundred and forty prelates were present. With the
exception of a few representatives from England and one or
two bishops from Germany, the attendance was confined to
ecclesiastics from Southern Europe. 1 Baldwin, emperor of
Constantinople, was there to plead his dismal cause. Fred-
erick was represented by his able counsellor, Thaddeus of
Suessa.
Thaddeus promised for his master to restore Greece to the
Roman communion and proceed to the Holy Land in person.
Innocent rejected the promises as intended to deceive and to
break up the council. The axe, he said, was laid at the root,
and the stroke was not to be delayed. When Thaddeus of-
fered the kings of England and France as sureties that the
emperor would keep his promise, the pope sagaciously re-
plied that in that case he would be in danger of having three
princes to antagonize. Innocent was plainly master of the
1 Two German bishops seem to have been present. Hefele, V. 982 sq.
Catholic historians have been concerned to increase the number of attending
prelates from the north.
44. THE FIRST COUNCIL OF LYONS. 193
situation. The council was in sympathy with him. Many
of its members had a grudge against Frederick for having
been subjected to the outrage of capture and imprisonment
by him.
At one of the first sessions the pope delivered a sermon
from the text, " See, ye who pass this way, was ever sorrow
like unto my sorrow ? " He dwelt upon five sorrows of
the Church corresponding to the five wounds of Christ : the
savage cruelty of the Mongols or Tartars, the schism of the
Greeks, the growth of heresy, the desolation of Jerusalem,
and the active persecution of the Church by the emperor.
The charges against Frederick were sacrilege and heresy.
As for the charge of heresy, Thaddeus maintained that it
could be answered only by Frederick in person, and a delay
of two weeks was granted that he might have time to appear.
When he failed to appear, Innocent pronounced upon him
the ban and declared him deposed from his throne. The
deliverance set forth four grave offences; namely, the viola-
tion of his oath to keep peace with the Church, sacrilege
in seizing the prelates on their way to the council, heresy,
and withholding the tribute due from Sicily, a papal fief.
Among the grounds for the charge of heresy were Freder-
ick's contempt of the pope's prerogative of the keys, his treaty
with the Sultan on his crusade, allowing the name of Moham-
med to be publicly proclaimed day and night in the temple,
having intercourse with Saracens, keeping eunuchs over his
women, and giving his daughter in marriage to Battacius,
an excommunicated prince. The words of the fell sentence
ran as follows :
" Seeing that we, unworthy as we are, hold on earth the authority of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who said to us in the person of St. Peter, ' what-
soever ye shall bind on earth,' etc., do hereby declare Frederick, who has
rendered himself unworthy of the honors of sovereignty and for his crimes
has been deposed from his throne by God, to be bound by his sins and cast
off by the Lord and we do hereby sentence and depose him ; and all who are
in any way bound to him by an oath of allegiance we forever release and
o
194 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1204.
absolve from that oath ; and by our apostolic authority, we strictly forbid
any one obeying him. We decree that any who gives aid to him as em-
peror or king shall be excommunicated ; and those in the empire on whom
the selection of an emperor devolves, have full liberty to elect a successor in
his place." 1
Thaddeus appealed from the decision to another council. 2
His master Frederick, on hearing what was done, is said to
have asked for his crown and to have placed it more firmly
on his head. In vain did the king of France, meeting Inno-
cent at Cluny, make a plea for the emperor, finding, as the
English chronicler said, "but very little of that humility
which he had hoped for in that servant of the servants of
God." Frederick's manifesto in reply to the council's act
was addressed to the king of P^ngland and other princes, and
reminded them of the low birth of the prelates who set
themselves up against lawful sovereigns, and denied the
pope's temporal authority. He warned them that his fate
was likely to be theirs and announced it as his purpose to
fight against his oppressors. It had been his aim to recall the
clergy from lives of luxury and the use of arms to apostolic
simplicity of manners. When this summons was heeded,
the world might expect again to see miracles as of old.
True as these principles were, and bold and powerful as was
their advocate, the time had not yet come for Europe to
espouse them, and the character of Frederick was altogether
too vulnerable to give moral weight to his words. 3
The council's discussions of measures looking to a new
crusade did not have any immediate result. The clergy,
besides being called upon to give a twentieth for three years,
were instructed to see to it that wills contained bequests for
the holy enterprise.
1 Mansi, XXIII. 612 sqq., 638; Luard's ed. of M. Paris, IV. 445-456.
Gregorovius calls this decree " one of the most ominous events in universal
history," V. 244. 2 Breholles, VI. 318.
8 Too much credit must not be given to Frederick for a far-seeing policy
based upon a love of truth or a perception of permanent principles. The
rights of conscience he nowhere hints at, and probably did not dream of.
44. THE FIRST COUNCIL OF LYONS. 195
One of the interesting figures at the council was Robert
Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, who protested against eccle-
siastical abuses in England, such as the appointment of un-
worthy foreigners to benefices, and the exorbitant exactions
for the papal exchequer. The pope gave no relief, and the
English bishops were commanded to affix their seals con-
firming King John's charter of tribute. 1 The only notable
achievement of the council of Lyons was the defeat of
Frederick. Innocent followed it up with vigorous measures.
Frederick's manifesto he answered with the reassertion of
the most extravagant claims. The bishop of Rome was
intrusted with authority to judge kings. If, in the Old
Testament, priests deposed unworthy monarchs, how much
more right had the vicar of Christ so to do. Innocent stirred
up the flames of rebellion in Sicily and through the mendi-
cant orders fanned the fires of discontent in Germany. Papal
legates practically usurped the government of the German
Church from 1246 to 1254. In the conflict over the election
of bishops to German dioceses, Innocent usually gained his
point, and in the year 1247-1248 thirteen of his nominees
were elected. 2 At the pope's instigation Henry Raspe, land-
grave of Thuringia, was chosen emperor, 1246, to replace
Frederick, and at his death, a year later, William of Holland.
In Italy civil war broke out. Here the mendicant orders
were also against him. He met the elements of revolt in
the South and subdued them. Turning to the North, success
was at first on his side but soon left him. One fatality
followed another. Thaddeus of Suessa fell, 1248. Peter
de Vinea, another shrewd counsellor, had abandoned his
master. Enzio, the emperor's favorite son, was in prison. 3
Utter defeat fell upon him before Parma and forced him
to abandon all Lombardy. As if there had not been curs-
1 M. Paris, Luard's ed., IV. 478. 2 See Aldinger.
8 The tragic career of this gifted man and consummate flower of chivalry
is deeply engraven in the romance arid architecture of Bologna.
196 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
ings enough, Innocent, in 1247, had once more launched the
anathema against him. Frederick's career was at an end.
He retired to Southern Italy, a broken man, and died near
Lucera, an old Samnite town, Dec. 13, 1250. His tomb
is at the side of the tomb of his parents in the cathedral of
Palermo. He died absolved by the archbishop of Palermo
and clothed in the garb of the Cistercians. 1
Stupor mundi, the Wonder of the World this is the
title which Matthew Paris applies to Frederick II. 2 Europe
had not seen his equal as a ruler since the days of Charle-
magne. For his wide outlook, the diversity of his gifts, and
the vigor and versatility of his statecraft he is justly com-
pared to the great rulers. 3 Morally the inferior of his
grandfather, Barbarossa, Frederick surpassed him in intel-
lectual breadth and culture. He is the most conspicuous
political figure of his own age and the most cosmopolitan
of the Middle Ages. He was warrior, legislator, statesman,
man of letters. He won concessions in the East and was
the last Christian king of Jerusalem to enter his realm. He
brought order out of confusion in Sicily and Southern Italy
and substituted the uniform legislation of the Sicilian Con-
stitutions for the irresponsible jurisdiction of ecclesiastical
court and baron. It has been said he founded the system
of centralized government 4 and prepared the way for
the monarchies of later times. He struck out a new path
1 This is the more credible narrative. Villani, an. 1250, tells the story
that Manfred bribed Frederick's chamberlain, and stifled the dying man
with a wet cloth.
2 Principum mundi maximus, stupor quoque mundi et immutator mirabi-
lis, "greatest of the princes of the earth, the wonder of the world and the
marvellous regulating genius [innovator] in its affairs." Luard's M. Paris,
V. 190, 196. In his letters Frederick styled himself Fredericus Dei gratia
Bomanorum imperator et semper augustus, Jerusalem et Sicilies rex.
8 Kington, I. 475 sqq.
4 Gregorovius, V. 271. This view is not discredited by the decentralizing
charters Frederick gave to German cities on which Fisher, Mediceval Em-
pire, lays so much stress. See his good chapter on ' ' Imperial Legislation
in Italy " (XI).
44. THE FIRST COUNCIL OF LYONS. 197
by appealing to the judgment of Christendom. With an
enlightenment above his age, he gave toleration to Jew and
Mohammedan.
In his conflict with the pope, he was governed, not by
animosity to the spiritual power, but by the determination to
keep it within its own realm. In genuine ideal opposition to
the hierarchy he went farther than any of his predecessors. 1
Dollinger pronounced him the greatest and most dangerous
foe the papacy ever had. 2 Gregory and Innocent IV. called
him " the great dragon " and declared he deserved the fate
of Absalom. And yet he did not resort to his grandfather's
measures and set up an anti-pope. 3 Perhaps he refrained
from so doing in sheer disdain.
It has been surmised that Frederick was not a Christian.
Gregory charged him specifically with blasphemy. But
Frederick as specifically disavowed the charge of making
Christ an impostor, and swore fealty to the orthodox faith. 4
If he actually threw off the statement of the three impostors
as charged, it must be regarded as the intemperate expression
of a mood. 5 Neander expresses the judgment that Frederick
denied revealed religion. Schlosser withholds from him all
religious and moral faith. Ranke and Freeman leave the
1 Ranke, VIII. 369 sqq. 2 Akademische Vortrage, III. 213.
8 Cardinal Earner's letter as given by M. Paris, Luard's ed., V. 61-67 ;
Giles's trans., II. 298 sqq. Peter the Lombard, writing to one of his pres-
byters, says ecclesia Romano, totis viribus contra imperatorem et ad ejus
destructionem, Breholles, V. 1226.
4 For the charge, that he denied the incarnation by the Virgin Mary and
other charges, see above and Breholles, V. 459 sq. ; M. Paris, Luard's ed., III.
621.
5 The statement was floating about in the air. It is traced to Simon
Tornacensis, a professor of theology in Paris, d. 1201, as well as to Fred-
erick. A book under the title De tribus impostoribus can be traced into the
sixteenth century. It produced the extermination of the Canaanites and
other arguments against the revealed character of the Bible and relegated
the incarnation to the category of the myths of the gods. See Herzog, Enc.
IX. 72-75; and F. W. Genthe, De impostura religionum, etc., Leipzig, 1833;
Benrath's art. in Herzog, IX. 72-75 ; Reuter, Gesch. der AufkUirung im M.A.,
II. 275 sqq.
198 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
question of his religious faith an open one. Hergenrother
makes the distinction that as a man he was an unbeliever, as
a monarch a strict Catholic. Gregorovius holds that he
cherished convictions as sincerely catholic as those professed
by the Ghibelline Dante. Fisher emphasizes his singular
detachment from the current superstitions of his day. 1
Huillard-Breholles advances the novel theory that his move-
ment was an attempt to usurp the sovereign pontificate and
found a lay papacy and to combine in himself royalty and
papal functions.
Frederick was highly educated, a friend of art and learning.
He was familiar with Greek, Latin, German, French, and
Arabic, as well as Italian. He founded the University of Na-
ples. He was a precursor of the Renaissance and was himself
given to rhyming. He wrote a book on falconry. 2 It was
characteristic of the man that while he was besieging Milan
in 1239, he was sending orders back to Sicily concerning his
forests and household concerns, thus reminding us of Napo-
leon and his care for his capital while on his Russian and
other campaigns. Like other men of the age, he cultivated
astrology. Michael Scott was his favorite astrologer. To
these worthy traits, Frederick added the luxurious habits
and apparently the cruelty of an Oriental despot. Inherit-
ing the island of which the Saracens had once been masters,
he showed them favor and did not hesitate to appropriate
some of their customs. He surrounded himself with a
Saracenic bodyguard 3 and kept a harem. 4
1 Med. Emp., II. 163.
2 Ranke calls it one of the best treatments of the Middle Ages on the sub-
ject. For Frederick's influence on culture and literature, see Breholles,
I. ch. 9. Also Fisher's Med. Emp., II. ch. 14, "The Empire and Culture."
8 This bodyguard was with him on his last campaign and before Parrna.
* Of his cruelty and unrestrained morals, priestly chroniclers could not say
enough. See Kington, II. 474 sqq. He was legally married four times;
Amari, in his History of the Mohammedans in Sicily, calls him a "baptized
sultan." For Frederick's relation to the Mohammedans, see Breholles, I.
326-375.
45. THE LAST OF THE HOHENSTAUPEN.
Freeman's judgment must be regarded as extravagant
when he says that " in mere genius, in mere' accomplishments,
Frederick was surely the greatest prince that ever wore a
crown." 1 Bryce pronounces him "one of the greatest per-
sonages in history." 2 Gregorovius declares that "with all
his faults he was the most complete and gifted character of
his century." Dante, a half-century after his death, puts
the great emperor among the heresiarchs in hell. When the
news of his death reached Innocent IV., that pontiff wrote to
the Sicilians that heaven and hell rejoiced at it. A juster
feeling was expressed by the Freiburger Chronicle when it
said, " If he had loved his soul, who would have been his
equal?" 3
45. The Last of the ffohenstaufen.
ADDITIONAL LITERATURE. Letters of Urban IV. in Mansi, vol. XXIII.
POTTHAST: Eegesta, 1161-1650. Les Registres of Alexander IV., Re-
cueil des bulles de ce pape d'apres les MSS. originaux des archives du
Vatican, Paris, 1886, of Urban IV., Paris, 1892, of Clement IV., Paris,
1893-1904. * Do LUNGER : Der Uebergang des Papstthums an die Fran-
zosen, in Akademische Vortrage, III. pp. 212-222, Munich, 1891. Lives
of the popes in Muratori and Platina.
The death of Frederick did not satisfy the papacy. It
had decreed the ruin of the house of the Hohenstaufen.
The popes denounced its surviving representatives as " the
viperous brood " and " the poisonous brood of a dragon of
poisonous race."
In his will, Frederick bade his son Conrad accord to the
1 Hist. Essays, I. 286. He says again, p. 283, " It is probable there never
lived a human being endowed with greater natural gifts." We may agree
with Freeman's statement that in Frederick's career " are found some of the
most wonderful chapters in European history," p. 313.
2 Holy Rom. Emp., ch. XIII.
8 Herbert Fisher says, " Of all the mediaeval emperors, Frederick II. alone
seems to have the true temper of the legislator." Med. Emp., II. 167.
Equal to his best generalizations is Gibbon's characterization of Frederick's
career, as "successively the pupil, the enemy, and the victim of the Church,"
ch. LIX.
200 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
Church her just rights and to restore any he himself might
have unjustly seized but on condition that she, as a merciful
and pious mother, acknowledge the rights of the empire.
His illegitimate son, the brilliant and princely Manfred, he
appointed his representative in Italy during Conrad's absence.
Innocent broke up from Lyons in 1251, little dreaming
that, a half century later, the papacy would remove there to
pass an exile of seventy years. 1 After an absence of six years,
he entered Rome, 1253. The war against Frederick he con-
tinued by offering the crown of Sicily to Edmund, son of the
English Henry III. Conrad descended to Italy and entered
Naples, making good his claim to his ancestral crown. But
the pope met him with the sentence of excommunication.
Death, which seemed to be in league with the papacy against
the ill-fated German house, claimed Conrad in 1254 at the age
of 26. He left an only son, Conradin, then two years old. 2
Conrad was soon followed by Innocent to the grave, 1254.
Innocent lies buried in Naples. He was the last of the great
popes of an era that was hastening to its end. During the
reign, perhaps, of no other pope had the exactions of Rome
upon England been so exorbitant and brazen. Matthew
Paris charged him with making the Church a slave and turn-
ing the papal court into a money changer's table. To his
relatives, weeping around his death-bed, he is reported to
have exclaimed: "Why do you weep, wretched creatures?
Do I not leave you all rich ? "
Under the mild reign of Alexander IV., 1254-1261, Man-
fred made himself master of Sicily and was crowned king at
Palermo, 1258.
1 M. Paris reports that a cardinal, after delivering a farewell sermon in In-
nocent's name, said, " Since our arrival in the city, we have done much good
and bestowed alms. On our arrival we found three or four brothels, but now,
at our departure, we leave only one behind, but that extends from the east-
ern to the western gate of the city." Luard's ed., V. 237.
2 A few months before, Henry, Frederick's son by Isabella of England,
had died. His son Euzio languished to his death in a Bologna prison, 1272.
45. THE LAST OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN. 201
Urban IV., 1261-1264, was consecrated at Viterbo and
did not enter Rome during his pontificate. He was a shoe-
maker's son and the first Frenchman for one hundred and
sixty years to occupy the papal throne. With him the papacy
came under French control, where it remained, with brief
intervals, for more than a century. Urban displayed his
strong national partisanship by his appointment of seven
French cardinals in a conclave of seventeen. The French
influence was greatly strengthened by his invitation to
Charles of Anjou, youngest brother of Louis IX. of France,
to occupy the Sicilian throne, claiming the right to do so
on the basis of the inherent authority of the papacy and on
the ground that Sicily was a papal fief. For centuries the
house of Anjou, with Naples as its capital, was destined
to be a disturbing element in the affairs, not only of Italy,
but of all Europe. 1 It stood for a new alliance in the history
of the papacy as their ancestors, the Normans, had done in
the age of Hildebrand. Called as supporter and ward of
the papacy, Charles of Anjou became dictator of its policy
and master of the political situation in Italy.
Clement IV., 1265-1268, one of the French cardinals ap-
pointed by Urban, had a family before he entered a Car-
thusian convent and upon a clerical career. He preached a
crusade against Manfred, who had dared to usurp the
Sicilian throne, and crowned Charles of Anjou in Rome, 1266.
Charles promised to pay yearly tribute to the Apostolic see.
A month later, Feb. 26, 1266, the possession of the crown of
Sicily was decided by the arbitrament of arms on the battle-
field of Benevento, where Manfred fell.
On the youthful Conradin, grandson of Frederick II., the
hopes of the proud German house now hung. His title to
the imperial throne was contested from the first. William
of Holland had been succeeded by the rival emperors, the
1 See the pages on the last popes of this period and of the last period of the
Middle Ages, especially under Alexander VI. and Julius II.
202 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1210-1294.
rich Duke Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III.,
elected in 1257 by four of the electors, and Alfonso of
Castile, elected by the remaining three. 1 Conradin marched
to Italy to assert his rights, 1267, was met by the papal ban,
and, although received by popular enthusiasm even in Rome,
he was no match for the tried skill of Charles of Anjou. His
fortunes were shattered on the battlefield of Tagliacozzo,
Aug. 23, 1268. Taken prisoner, he was given a mock trial.
The Bolognese lawyer, Guido of Suzarra, made an ineffec-
tive plea that the young prince had come to Italy, not as
a robber but to claim his inheritance. The majority of
the judges were against the death penalty, but the spirit of
Charles knew no clemency, and at his instance Conradin was
executed at Naples, Oct. 29, 1268. The last words that fell
from his lips, as he kneeled for the fatal stroke, were words
of attachment to his mother, " O mother, what pain of heart
do I make for you ! "
With Conradin the male line of the Hohenstaufen became
extinct. Its tragic end was enacted on the soil which had
always been so fatal to the German rulers. Barbarossa
again and again met defeat there ; and in Southern Italy
Henry VI., Frederick II., Conrad, Manfred, and Conradin
were all laid in premature graves.
At Conradin's burial Charles accorded military honors, but
not religious rites. The Roman crozier had triumphed over
the German eagle. The Swabian hill, on which the proud
castle of the Hohenstaufen once stood, looks down in solemn
silence upon the peaceful fields of Wiirttemberg and preaches
the eloquent sermon that " all flesh is as grass and all the
glory of man is as the flower of grass." The colossal claims
of the papacy survived the blows struck again and again by
1 Alfonso never visited Germany. Richard spent part of his time there,
but was destitute of political power. The threat of excommunication de-
terred the electors from electing Conradin. For the imperial electoral college,
see Fisher, Med. Emp., I. 225 sq., and for Richard, see Richard v, Cornwall
neit sr. Wahl z. deutschen Konig., 1905.
46. THE EMPIRE AND PAPACY AT PEACE. 203
this imperial family, through a century. Italy had been'
exposed for three generations and more to the sword, rapine,
and urban strife. Europe was weary of the conflict. The
German minnesingers and the chroniclers of England and
the Continent were giving expression to the deep unrest.
Partly as a result of the distraction bordering on anarchy,
the Mongols were threatening to burst through the gates of
Eastern Germany. It was an eventful time. Antioch, one
of the last relics of the Crusaders in Asia Minor, fell back to
the Mohammedans in 1268. Seven years earlier the Latin
empire of Constantinople finally reverted to its rightful
owners, the Greeks.
In the mighty duel which has been called by the last great
Roman historian l the grandest spectacle of the ages, the em-
pire had been humbled to the dust. But ideas survive, and
the principle of the sovereign right of the civil power within
its own sphere has won its way in one form or another among
European peoples and their descendants. And the fate of
young Conradin was not forgotten. Three centuries later
it played its part in the memories of the German nation, and
through the pictures of his execution distributed in Martin
Luther's writings contributed to strengthen the hand of the
Protestant Reformer in his struggle with the papacy, which
did not fail.
46. The Umpire and Papacy at Peace. 1271-1294.
POPES. Gregory X., 1271-1276 ; Innocent V., Jan. 21-June 22, 1276 ; Adrian
V., July 12-Aug. 16, 1276 ; John XXL, 1276-1277 ; Nicolas III., 1277-
1280; Martin IV., 1281-1285; Honorius IV., 1285-1287; Nicolas IV.,
1288-1292 ; Coelestin V., July 5-Dec. 13, 1294.
LITERATURE. POTTHAST : Regest., pp. 1651-1922. Les Registres de Gregoire
X. et Jean XXL, 3 vols., Paris, 1892-1898, de Nicolas III., Paris, 1904,
d' Honorius IV., Paris, 1886, de Nicolas IV., Paris, 1880. Lives of the
above popes in MURATORI : Her. Ital. scr., vol. III. MANSI : Councils,
XXIV. HEFELE, VI. 125 sqq. TURINAAZ, La patrie et lafamille de
Pierre de Tarantaise, pape sous le nom iVInnocent V., Nancy,
1 Gresrorovius.
204 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1210-1294.
1882. H. OTTO: Die Beziehungen Eudolfs von Hapsburg zu Papst
Gregor X., Innsbruck, 1895. A. DEMSKI : Papst Nicolas 777., Minister,
1903, pp. 364. R. STKRNFELD : Der Kardinal Johann Gaetan Orsini,
Papst Nic. III., 1244-1277, Berlin, 1905, pp. 376. Reviewed at length
by Hallerin "Theol. Literaturzeitung," 1906, pp. 173-178. H. FINKE :
Concilienstudien zur Gesch. des ISten Jahrhunderts, Miinster, 1891.
For Ccelestin V., FIVKE : Ausden Tagen Bonifaz VIII., Miinster, 1902 ;
H. SCHULZ, Peter von Murrhone, 1894 ; and CELIDOMO, Vita di S.
Pietro del Morrone, 1896. The articles on the above popes in VVetzer-
Welte and Herzog (Gregory X., by MIRBT, Ccdestin V., Innocent V.,
Honorius IV., etc., by HANS SCHULZ). The Histories of GREGOROVIUS,
KANKE, etc.
The death of Clement IV. was followed by the longest
interregnum the papacy has known, lasting thirty-three
months, Nov. 29, 1268, to Sept. 1, 1271. It was due largely
to the conflict between the French and Italian parties in the
conclave and was prolonged in spite of the stern measures
taken by the municipality of Viterbo, where the election oc-
curred. Cardinals were even imprisoned. The new pope,
Gregory X., archdeacon of Lige, was not an ordained priest.
The news reached him at Acre while he was engaged in a pil-
grimage. A man of peaceful and conciliatory spirit, he is one
of the two popes of the thirteenth century who have received
canonization. Pursuing the policy of keeping the empire
and the kingdom of Southern Italy apart, and setting aside
the pretensions of Alfonso of Castile, 1 he actively furthered
the election of Rudolf of Hapsburg to the imperial throne.
The elevation of Rudolf inaugurated a period of peace in
the relations of the papacy and the empire. Gregory X.
had gained a brilliant victory. The emperor was crowned
at Aachen, Oct. 24, 1273. The place of the Hohenstaufen
was thus taken by the Austrian house of Hapsburg, which
has continued to this day to be a reigning dynasty and
loyal to the Catholic hierarchy. In the present century its
power has been eclipsed by the Hohenzollern, whose original
birth seat in Wiirttemberg is a short distance from that of
1 Richard, duke of Cornwall, had died April 2, 1272.
46. THE EMPIRE AND PAPACY AT PEACE. 205
the Hohenstaufen. 1 The establishment of peace by Rudolf's
election is celebrated by Schiller in the famous lines : 2
" Then was ended the long, the direful strife,
That time of terror, with no imperial lord."
Rudolf was a man of decided religious temper, was not
ambitious to extend his power, and became a just and safe
ruler. He satisfied the claims of the papacy by granting
freedom to the chapters in the choice of bishops, by promising
to protect the Church in her rights, and by renouncing all
claim to Sicily and the State of the Church. In a tone of
moderation Gregory wrote : " It is incumbent on princes to
protect the liberties and rights of the Church and not to de-
prive her of her temporal property. It is also the duty of
the spiritual ruler to maintain kings in the full integrity
of their authority."
The emperor remained on good terms with Gregory's suc-
cessors, Innocent V., a Frenchman, Adrian V., a Genoese,
who did not live to be consecrated, and John XXI., the only
priest from Portugal who has worn the tiara. Their com-
bined reigns lasted only eighteen months. John died from
the falling of a ceiling in his palace in Viterbo.
The second Council of Lyons, known also as the Fourteenth
CEcumenical Council, was called by Gregory and opened by
him with a sermon. It is famous for the attempt made to
unite the Greek and Western Churches and the presence of
Greek delegates, among them Germanus, formerly patriarch
of Constantinople. His successor had temporarily been
placed in confinement for expressing himself as opposed to
ecclesiastical union. A termination of the schism seemed to
be at hand. The delegates announced the Greek emperor's
1 The ancient seat of the Hapsburgs was in Aargau, Switzerland, scarcely
one hundred miles away from Zollern.
2 " Dann geendigt nach langem venlerblichen Streit,
War die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"
Der Graf von Hapsburg.
206 THE MIDDLE AGES. A. D. 1216-1294.
full acceptance of the Latin creed, including the procession of
the Holy Spirit from the Son and the primacy of the bishop
of Rome. The Apostles' Creed was sung in Greek and
Latin. Papal delegates were sent to Constantinople to con-
summate the union; but the agreement was rejected by the
Greek clergy. It is more than surmised that the Greek
emperor, Michael Palseologus, was more concerned for the
permanency of the Greek occupation of Constantinople than
for the ecclesiastical union of the East and the West upon
which the hearts of popes had been set so long.
Other important matters before the council were the rule
for electing a pope, and the reception of a delegation of Mon-
gols who sought to effect a uni9n against the Mohammedans.
Several members of the delegation received baptism. The
decree of the Fourth Lateran, prohibiting new religious
orders, was reaffirmed.
The firm and statesmanlike administration of Nicolas III.
checked the ambition of Charles of Anjou, who was plotting
for the Greek crown. He was obliged to abjure the senator-
ship of Rome, which he had held for ten years, and to re-
nounce the vicariate of Tuscany. Bologna for the first time
acknowledged the papal supremacy. Nicolas has been called
the father of papal nepotism, 1 and it is partly for his generos-
ity to his relatives that, before the generation had passed
away, Dante put him in hell : 2
" To enrich my whelps, I laid my schemes aside,
My wealth I've stowed, my person here."
Again, in 1281, the tiara passed to a Frenchman, a man of
humble birth, Martin IV. Charles was present at Viterbo
when the election took place and was active in securing it. 3
1 See the elaborate art. Nepotismus in Wetzer-Welte, IX. 109 sqq.; and
Haller in Literaturzeitung, see above.
2 Inferno, XIX. 72 sqq. The term whelps " refers to the Orsini or bear
clan, to which Nicolas belonged.
3 See the art. Martin by Knopfler in Wetzer-Welte, VIII. 919 sq.
46. THE EMPIRE AND PAPACY AT PEACE. 207
Martin showed himself completely complaisant to the designs
of the Angevin house and Charles was once more elected to
the Roman senatorship. Seldom had a pope been so fully
the tool of a monarch. 1 In Southern Italy Frenchmen were
every where in the ruling positions. But this national insult
was soon to receive a memorable rebuke.
In resentment at the hated French regime, the Sicilians
rose up, during Easter week, 1282, and enacted the bloody
massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers. All the Normans on
the island, together with the Sicilian wives of Normans, were
victims of the merciless vengeance. The number that fell
is estimated at from eight to twenty thousand. The tragedy
gets its name from the tradition that the Sicilians fell to
their work at the ringing of the vesper bell. 2 Charles's rule
was thenceforward at an end on the Panormic isle. Peter of
Aragon, who married Constance, the daughter of Manfred
and the granddaughter of Frederick II., was crowned king.
For nearly two hundred years thereafter the crowns of Sicily
and Naples were kept distinct.
Not to be untrue to Charles, Martin hurled the anathema
at the rebels, placed Aragon and Sicily under the interdict,
and laid Christendom under a tribute of one-tenth for a
crusade against Peter. The measures were in vain, and
Charles's galleys met with defeat off the coast of Calabria.
Charles and Martin died the same year, 1285, the latter, like
Gregory X., at Perugia.
After an interregnum of ten months, Nicolas IV. ascended
the papal throne, the first Franciscan to be elevated to the
office. His reign witnessed the evacuation of Ptolemais or
Acre, the last possession of the Crusaders in Syria. Nico-
las died in the midst of futile plans to recover the Holy
Places.
1 " He was led about by the nose by Charles," Muratori, XL 492. So
Hergenrother, Kirchengesch., 11.310.
2 See Ranke, VIII. 531 sqq.
208 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1210-1294.
Another interregnum of twenty-seven months followed,
April 4, 1292 to July 5, 1294, when the hermit Peter de Mur-
rhone, Coelestin V., was raised to the papal throne, largely
at the dictation of Charles II. of Naples. His short reign
forms a curious episode in the annals of the papacy. His
career shows the extremes of station from the solitude of the
mountain cell to the chief dignity of Europe. He enjoyed the
fame of sanctity and founded the order of St. Damian, which
subsequently honored him by taking the name of Ccelestines.
The story ran that he had accomplished the unprecedented
feat of hanging his cowl on a sunbeam. At the time of his
elevation to the papal throne Coelestin was seventy-nine.
An eye-witness, Stefaneschi, has described the journey to
the hermit's retreat by three bishops who were appointed to
notify him of his election. They found him in a rude hut
in the mountains, furnished with a single barred window, his
hair unkempt, his face pale, and his body infirm. After
announcing their errand they bent low and kissed his san-
dals. Had Peter been able to go forth from his anchoret
solitude, like Anthony of old, on his visits to Alexandria,
and preach repentance and humility, he would have pre-
sented an exhilarating spectacle to after generations. As it
is, his career arouses pity for his frail and unsophisticated
incompetency to meet the demands which his high office
involved.
Clad in his monkish habit and riding on an ass, the bridle
held by Charles II. and his son, Peter proceeded to Aquila,
where he was crowned, only three cardinals being present.
Completely under the dominance of the king, Coelestin
took up his residence in Naples. Little was he able to battle
with the world, to cope with the intrigues of factions, and to
resist the greedy scramble for office which besets the path of
those high in position. In simple confidence Coelestin gave
his ear to this counsellor and to that, and yielded easily to all
applicants for favors. His complaisancy to Charles is seen
46. THE EMPIRE AND PAPACY AT PEACE. 209
in his appointment of cardinals. Out of twelve whom he
created, seven were Frenchmen, and three" Neapolitans. It
would seem as if he fell into despair at the self-seeking and
worldliness of the papal court, and he exclaimed, " O God,
while I rule over other men's souls, I am losing the salvation
of my own." He was clearly not equal to the duties of the
tiara. In vain did the Neapolitans seek by processions to
dissuade him from resigning. Clement I. had abjured his
office, as had also Gregory VI. though at the mandate of an
emperor. Peter issued a bull declaring it to be the pope's
right to abdicate. His own abdication he placed on the
ground " of his humbleness, the quest of a better life and
an easy conscience, on account of his frailty of body and
want of knowledge, the badness of men, and a desire to
return to the quietness of his former state." The real reason
for his resigning is obscure. The story went that the
ambitious Cardinal Gaetani, soon to become Coelestin's
successor, was responsible for it. He played upon the
hermit's credulity by speaking through a reed, inserted
through the wall of the hermit's chamber, and declared it to
be heaven's will that his reign should come to an end. 1 As
i The author of the suggestion that Ccelestin should abdicate has given rise
to a good deal of controversy in recent years. Was Benedict Gaetani (Boni-
face VIII.) the author, or did the suggestion come from the senile old pope
himself. Hans Schulz, a Protestant, has recently called in question the old
view that laid the blame on Benedict, and regards it as probable that Coelestin
was the first to propose abdication, and that Benedict being called in gave the
plan his sanction. He says, however, that in the whole matter "Benedict's
eye was directed to the papal crown as his own prize." See Herzog's Enc.,
IV. 203. Hergenrother-Kirsch, Kirchengesch. , II. 312, and Finke, Aus den
Tagen Bonifaz VIIL, p. 39 sqq., both Koman Catholic historians, have
adopted the same position, as does also Scholz, Publizistik zur Zeit Philipp
IV. und Bonifaz VIII., p. 3. The contemporary historians differ about the
matter, but upon the whole are against the cardinal. The charge that he was
at the bottom of the abdication and the main promoter of it was one of the
chief charges brought against him by his enemy, Philip the Fair of France.
One of the measures for humiliating Boniface proposed by the king was the
canonization of Coelestin as one whom Boniface had abused. See Document
of the year 1305, printed for 'the first time by Finke, p. xcviii. A tract
p
210 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
the Italians say, the story, if not true, was well invented,
si non e vero e ben trovato.
In abandoning the papacy the departing pontiff forfeited
all freedom of movement. He attempted to flee across the
Adriatic, but in vain. He was kept in confinement by Boni-
face VIII. in the castle of Fumone, near Anagni, until his
death, May 19, 1296. What a world-wide contrast the sim-
plicity of the hermit's reign presents to the violent assertion
and ambitious designs of Boniface, the first pope of a new
period !
Coslestin's sixth centenary was observed by pious admirers
in Italy. 1 Opinions have differed about him. Petrarch
praised his humility. Dante, with relentless severity held
him up as an example of moral cowardice, the one who made
the great renunciation.
" Behold ! that abject one appeared in view
Who, mean of soul, the great refusal made." 2
Vidi e cenobbi la ombra di colui
Chefeceper viltate il gran rifuto.
A new era for the papacy was at hand.
issued by one of Boniface's party attempted to parry this suggestion by declar-
ing that Boniface, who was then dead, had merits which entitled him to canon-
ization above Coelestin. The author said, " si canonizatio Celeslini petitur,
multo magis canonizacio sanctissimi patris domini Bonifacii, postulari
debet et approbari." He continues, " Coalestin's canonization is asked because
he profited himself and died in sua simplicitate ; Boniface's ought to be asked
for because he profited others and died for the freedom of the Church." See
the document printed for the first time in Finke, p. Ixxxv, and which
Finke puts in 1308. Ccelestin was canonized 1313 by Clement V.
1 A memorial volume was published under the title Celestin V ed il vi
Centenario della sua incoronasione, Aquila, 1894.
2 Inferno, III. 58 sq.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CRUSADES.
" No idle fancy was it when of yore
Pilgrims in countless numbers braved the seas,
And legions battled on the farthest shore,
Only to pray at Thy sepulchral bed,
Only in pious gratitude to kiss
The sacred earth on which Thy feet did tread."
UHLAND, An den Unsichtbaren,
47. Literature on the Crusades as a Whole.
SOURCES . First printed collection of writers on the Crusades by JAC. BON-
GARS : Gesta Dei (and it might be added, et diaboli) per Francos, sive
orientalium expcditionum, etc., 2 vols. Hanover, 1611. Mostly reports
of the First Crusade and superseded. The most complete collection,
edited at great expense and in magnificent style, Becueil des Historiens
des Croisades public par VAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres, viz.
Historiens Occidentaux, 5 vols. Paris, 1841-1895 ; Histt. Orientaux, 4 vols.
1872-1898 ; Histt. Grecs, 2 vols. 1875-1881 ; Documents Armeniens, 1869.
The first series contains, in vols. I., II., the Historia rerum in partibus
transmarinis gestarum of William of Tyre and the free reproduction in
French entitled UEstoire de Eracles Empereur et la Conqueste de la terre
d" 1 Outremer. Vol. III. contains the Gesta Francorum ; the Historia de
Hierolosymitano itinere of PETER TUDEBODUS, Hist. Francorum qui
ceperunt Jherusalem of RAYMOND OF AGUILERS or Argiles ; Hist. Jheru-
solymitana or Gesta Francorum Jherusalem perigrinantium 1095-1127,
of FULCHER OF CHARTRES ; Hist. Jherusol. of ROBERT THE MONK, etc.
Vol. IV. contains Hist. Jherusolem. of BALDRIC OF DOL (Ranke, VIII.
82, speaks highly of Baldric as an authority) ; Gesta Dei per Francos
of GUIBERT OF NOGENT ; Hist. Hier. of ALBERT OF AACHEN, etc. Vol. V.
contains Ekkehardi Hierosolymita and a number of other documents.
Migne's Latin Patrology gives a number of these authors, e.g., Fulcher
and Petrus Tudebodus, vol. 155 ; Guibert, vol. 156 ; Albert of Aachen
and Baldric, vol. 166; William of Tyre, vol. 201. Contemporary
Chronicles of ORDERICUS VITALIS, ROGER OF HOVEDEN, ROGER OF
WENDOVER, M. PARIS, etc. Reports of Pilgrimages, e.g., COUNT RIANT :
211
212 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Expeditions et pelerinayes des Scandinaves en Terre Sainte an temps
des Croisades, Paris, 1865, 1867 ; R. ROHRICHT: Die Pilgerfahrten notch
d. heil. Lande vor den Kreuzzugen, 1875 ; Deutsche Pilgerreisen nach
dem heil. Lande, new ed. Innsbruck, 1900 ; H. SCHRADER : D. Pilgerfahr-
ten nach.d. heil. Lande im Zeitalter vor den Kreuzzugen, Merzig, 1897.
JAFFE : Eegesta. MANSI : Concilia. For criticism of the contempo-
rary writers see SYBEL, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, 2d ed. 1881, pp.
1_143. H. PRUTZ (Prof, in Nancy, France) : Quellenbeilrdge zur Gesch.
der Kreuzzuge, Danzig, 1876. 11. ROHRICHT: Eegesta regni Hierosolymi-
tani 1097-1291, Innsbruck, 1904, an analysis of 900 documents.
MODERN WORKS. *FRIEDRICH WILKEN (Libr. and Prof, in Berlin, d. 1840) :
Gesch. der Kreuzzuge, 7 vols. Leipzig, 1807-1832. J. F. MICHAUD:
Hist, des croisades, 3 vols. Paris, 1812, 7th ed. 4 vols. 1862. Engl. trans,
by W. ROBSON, 3 vols., London, 1854, New York, 1880. *ROHRICHT
(teacher in one of the Gymnasia of Berlin, d. 1905 ; he published eight
larger works on the Crusades) : Beitrage zur Gesch. der Kreuzziige, 2
vols. Berlin, 1874-1878; D. Deutschen im heil. Lande, Innsbruck, 1894 ;
Gesch. d. Kreuzziige, Innsbruck, 1898. B. KUGLER (Prof, in Tubingen) :
Gesch. der Kreuzzuge, illustrated, Berlin, 1880, 2d ed. 1891. A. DE
LAPORTE : Les croisades et le pays latin de Jerusalem, Paris, 1881.
*PRUTZ: Kulturgesch. der Kreuzzuge, Berlin, 1883. Ed. HEYCK: Die
Kreuzzuge und das heilige Land, Leipzig, 1900. Histories in English
by MILLS, London, 1822, 4th ed. 2 vols. 1828 ; KEIGHTLEY, London.
1847 ; PROCTOR, London, 1858 ; EDGAR, London, 1860 ; W. E. DUTTON,
London, 1877 ; G. W. Cox, London, 1878 ; J. I. MOMBERT, New York,
1891 ; *ARCHER AND KINGSFORD: Story of the Crus., New York, 1895;
J. M. LUDLOW : Age of the Crusades, New York, 1896 ; Art. Kreuzzuge
by FUNK in Wetzer-Welte, VII. 1142-1177. PH. SCHAFF in "Ref.
Quarterly Rev.," 1893, pp. 438-459. J. L. HAHN : Ursachen und Folgen
der Kreuzzuge, Greifswald, 1859. CHALANDON : Essai sur le regne
d 1 Alexis Comnene, Paris, 1900. *A. GOTTLOB : D. pdpstlichen Kreuz-
zugs-Steuren des 13. Jahrhunderts, Heiligenstadt, 1892, pp. 278 ; Kreuz-
ablass und Almosenablass, Stuttgart, 1906, pp. 314. Essays on the
Crusades by MUNRO, PRUTZ, DIEHL, Burlington, 1903. H. C. LEA:
Hist, of Auric. Confession and Indulgences, vol. III. See also *GIBBON,
LVIII-LIX ; MILMAN ; GIESEBRECHT : Gesch. d. deutschen Kaiserzeit ;
RANKE: Weltgesch., VIII. pp. 88-111, 150-161, 223-262, 280-307; IX.
93-98 ; FINLAY : Hist, of the Byznt. and Gr. Empires, 1057-1453; HOPF :
Gesch. Griechenlands vom Beginn des Mittelalters, etc., Leipzig, 1868 ;
BESANT AND PALMER : Hist, of Jerusalem, London, 1890 ; GUY LE
STRANGE : Palestine under the Moslems, London, 1890.
The Poetry of the Crusades is represented chiefly by RAOUL DE CAEN
in Gestes de Tancrede; TORQUATO TASSO, the Homer of the Crusades, in
La Jerusalemme liberata ; WALTER SCOTT: Tales of the Crusades, Tal-
isman, Quentin Durward, etc. The older literature is given in full by
MICHAUD; Bibliographie des Croisades, 2 vols. Paris, 1822, which form
vols. VI., VII. of his Histoire des Croisades.
47. LITEBATUKE ON THE CRUSADES AS A WHOLE. 213
THE FIRST CRUSADE.
SOURCES. See Literature above. Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosoly mi to-
rum by an anonymous writer who took part in the First Crusade, in Bon-
gars and Recueil des Croisades. See above. Also Hagenmeyer's critical
edition, Anonymi Gesta Francorum, Heidelberg, 1890. ROBERTUS, a
monk of Rheims: Hist. Hierosoly mitana, in Bongars, Rec., and Migne,
vol. 155. BALDRICH, abp. of Dol: Hist. Hierosol., in Bongars, and
Rec. RAYMUND DE AGUILERS, chaplain to the count of Toulouse : Hist.
Francorum, 1095-1099, in Bongars, Rec., and Migne, vol. 155. See CLEM.
KLEIN : Raimund von Aguilers, Berlin, 1892. FULCHER, chaplain to the
count of Chartres and then to Baldwin, second king of Jerusalem : Gesta
Francorum Jerusalem perigrinantium to 1125, in Bongars, Rec., and
Migne, vol. 155. GUIBERT, abbot of Nogent: Gesta Dei per Francos, to
1110, in Bongars, Rec., Migne, vol.156. ALBERTUS OF AACHEN (AQUEN-
sis) : Hist. Hierosol. expeditionis, to 1121, in Bongars, Rec., Migne, vol.
166. See B. KUGLER : Albert von Aachen, Stuttgart, 1885. WILLIAM
OF TYRE, abp. of Tyre, d. after 1184: Hist, re-rum in partibus trans-
marinis aestarum, Basel, 1549, under the title of belli sacri historia, in
Bongars, Rec., Migne, vol. 201, Engl. trans, by W.M. CAXTON, ed. by
MARY N. COLVIN, London, 1893. ANNA COMNENA (1083-1148) : Alexias,
a biogr. of her father, the Greek emperor, Alexis I., in Rec., Migne, Pat.
Graeca, vol. 131 ; also 2 vols. Leipzig, 1884, ed. by REIFFERSCHEID ; also
in part in HAGENMEYER, Peter der Eremite, pp. 303-314. EKKEHARD
OF URACH: Hierosolymita seu libellus de oppressione, liberatione ac
restauratione sanctae Hierosol., 1095-1187, in Rec., and Migne, vol. 154,
and HAGEXMEYER : Ekkehard's Ilierosolymita, Tubingen, 1877, also Das
Verhaltniss der Gesta Francorum zu der Hiersol. Ekkehards in "For-
schungen zur deutschen Gesch.," Gottingen, 1875, pp. 21-42. PETRUS
TUDEBODUS, of the diocese of Poitiers : Hist, de Hierosolymitano itinere,
1095-1099, largely copied from the Gesta Francorum, in Migne, vol. 155,
and Recueil. RADULPHUS CADOMENSIS (Raoul of Caen): Gesta Tan-
credi, 1099-1108, Migne, vol. 155, and Recueil. RIANT: Inventaire
critique des lettres hist, des croisades, I., II., Paris, 1880. H. HAGEN-
MEYER : Epistulce et chartce ad historiam primi belli sacri spectantes
quce supersunt, etc., 1088-1100, Innsbruck, 1901. See the translation
of contemporary documents in Trans, and Reprints, etc., published by
Department of History of Univ. of Penn., 1894.
The Poetry of the First Crusade : La Chanson d'Antioche, ed. by
PADLIN PARIS, 2 vols. Paris, 1848. He dates the poem 1125-1138, and
Nouvelle Etude sur la Chanson d'Antioche, Paris, 1878. La Conquete
de Jerusalem, ed. by C. HIPPEAU, Paris, 1868. Roman du Chevalier
au Cygne et Godefroi de Bouillon.
MODERN WORKS. *H. VON SYBEL : Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, Diisseldorf ,
1841, 3d ed. Leipzig, 1900. The Introduction contains a valuable criti-
cal estimate of the contemporary accounts. Engl. trans, of the Introd.
and four lectures by Sybel in 1858, under the title, The Hist, and Lit. of
214 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1.049-1294.
the Crusades, by LADY DUFF GORDON, London, 1861. J. F. A. PETRE :
Hist, de la premiere croisade, Paris, 1859. *HAGENMETER: Peter der
Eremite, Leipzig, 1879 ; Chron. de la premiere croisade, 1094-1100, Paris,
1901. ROHRICHT: Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, Innsbruck, 1901.
F. CHALANDON : Essai sur le regne (T Alexis I. Comnene, 1081-1118,
Paris, 1900. PAULOT : Un pape Fran^ais, Urbain II., Paris, 1902.
D. C. MUNRO: The Speech of Urban at Clermont, "Am. Hist. Rev."
1906, pp. 231-242. Art. in Wetzer-Welte, by FUNK, Petrus von Amiens,
vol. IX.
48. Character and Causes of the Crusades.
" '0, holy Palmer ! ' she began.
For sure he must be sainted man
Whose blessed feet have trod the ground
Where the Redeemer's tomb is found."
Marmion, V. 21.
THE Crusades were armed pilgrimages to Jerusalem under
the banner of the cross. They form one of the most char-
acteristic chapters of the Middle Ages and have a romantic
and sentimental, as well as a religious and military, interest.
They were a sublime product of the Christian imagination,
and constitute a chapter of rare interest in the history of
humanity. They exhibit the muscular Christianity of the
new nations of the West which were just emerging from
barbarism and heathenism. They made religion subservient
to war and war subservient to religion. They were a suc-
cession of tournaments between two continents and two
religions, struggling for supremacy, Europe and Asia,
Christianity and Mohammedanism. Such a spectacle the
world has never seen before nor since, and may never see
again. 1
These expeditions occupied the attention of Europe for
more than two centuries, beginning with 1095. Yea, they
continued to be the concern of the popes until the beginning
of the sixteenth century. Columbus signed an agreement
April 17, 1492, to devote the proceeds of his undertaking
1 Gibbon, who treats with scorn the Crusades as a useless exhibition of
religious fanaticism, calls them the " world's debate," Ch. LIX.
48. CHARACTER AND CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES. 215
beyond the Western seas to the recovery of the holy sep-
ulchre. Before his fourth and last journey to America he
wrote to Alexander VI., renewing his vow to furnish troops
for the rescue of that sacred locality. 1 There were seven
greater Crusades, the first beginning in 1095, the last ter-
minating with the death of St. Louis, 1270. Between
these dates and after 1270 there were other minor expe-
ditions, and of these not the least worthy of attention were
the tragic Crusades of the children.
The most famous men of their age were identified with
these movements. Emperors and kings went at the head of
the armies, Konrad III., Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick
II., Richard I. of England, Louis VII., Philip Augustus and
Louis IX. of France, Andrew of Hungary. Fair women of
high station accompanied their husbands or went alone to
the seats of war, such as Alice of Antioch, Queen Eleanor of
France, Ida of Austria, Berengaria, wife of Richard, and
Margaret, queen of Louis IX. Kings' sons shared the same
risks, as Frederick of Swabia, Sigurd, and Edward, son of
Henry III., accompanied by Eleanor, his wife. Priests,
abbots, and higher ecclesiastics fought manfully in the ranks
and at the head of troops. 2 The popes stayed at home, but
were tireless in their appeals to advance the holy project.
With many of the best popes, as Honorius III. and
Gregory X., the Crusades were their chief passion. Monks,
like Peter the Hermit, St. Bernard, and Fulke of Neuilly,
stirred the flames of enthusiasm by their eloquence. But if
1 John Fiske, Discovery of America, I. 318, 419, 505.
2 The Itinerary of Eichard /., giving an account of the Third Crusade,
lays stress upon the good fighting qualities of the prelates and clergy. It
speaks of one priest who was incessantly active against the enemy, hurling
darts from a sling with indefatigable toil, I. 42. The archbishop of Besangon
superintended the construction of a great machine for battering down the
walls of Acre and met its expense, I. 60. Two hundred knights and
three hundred followers served under archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury,
old man as he was, and " abbots and bishops led their own troops, fighting
manfully for the faith," I. 62.
216 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
some of the best men of Europe and those most eminent in
station went on the Crusades, so also did the lowest elements
of European society, thieves, murderers, perjurers, vaga-
bonds, and scoundrels of all sorts, as Bernard bears witness. 1
So it has been in all wars.
The crusading armies were designated by such titles as
the army " of the cross," " of Christ," " of the Lord," " of
the faith." 2 The cross was the badge of the Crusaders and
gave to them their favorite name. The Crusaders were
called the soldiers of Christ, 3 pilgrims, peregrini, and "those
signed with the cross," crucisignati or signatores. Determin-
ing to go on a crusade was called " taking the cross " or
"taking the sign of the cross." 4
Contemporaries had no doubt of the Crusades being a holy
undertaking, and Guibert's account of the First Crusade
is called "The Deeds of God, accomplished through the
Franks," Gresta Dei per Francos.
Those who fell under Eastern skies or on their way to
the East received the benefits of special indulgence for sins
committed and were esteemed in the popular judgment as
martyrs. John VIII., 872-882, pressed by the Saracens who
were devastating Italy, had promised to soldiers fighting
bravely against the pagans the rest of eternal life and, as far
as it belonged to him to give it, absolution from sins. 6 This
precedent was followed by Urban II., who promised the first
1 De militibus templi, V., Migne, 182, 928.
2 Roger of Wendover, Luard's ed., M. Paris, III : 35.
8 Milites Christi, Robert the Monk, VII., Eec., III. 867 ; Christi militia,
Guibert, VII. , II. , Eec. , IV. 229. The army was also called crucifer exercitus,
Ekkehard, Eec. V. 16.
4 The French terms were se croiser, prendre la croix, prendre le signe de la
croix. See, for example, Villehardouin, 2, 8, 18, Wailly's ed. pp. 3, 7, 13.
This historian of the Fourth Crusade also calls the Crusaders les croiscs, 38,
Wailly's ed. p. 24.
6 Quoniam illi, qui cum pietate catholicce religionis in belli certamine
cadunt, requies eos ceternce vitce suscipiet contra paganos atque infideles
strenue dimicantes, etc., Gottlob, Kreuzablass, 25.
48. CHARACTER AND CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES. 217
Crusaders marching to Jerusalem that the journey should
be counted as a substitute for penance. 1 Eugenius, 1146,
went farther, in distinctly promising the reward of eternal
life. The virtue of the reward was extended to the parents
of those taking part in Crusades. Innocent III. included
in the plenary indulgence those who built ships and con-
tributed in any way, and promised to them "increase of
eternal life." God, said the abbot Guibert, chronicler of
the First Crusade, invented the Crusades as a new way for
the laity to atone for their sins, and to merit salvation. 2
The rewards were not confined to spiritual privileges.
Eugenius III., in his exhortations to the Second Crusade,
placed the Crusaders in the same category with clerics before
the courts in the case of most offences. 3 The kings of
France, from 1188 to 1270 joined with the Holy See in
granting to them temporal advantages, exemption from debt,
freedom from taxation and, the payment of interest. Com-
plaint was frequently made by the kings of France that the
Crusaders committed the most offensive crimes under cover
of ecclesiastical protection. These complaints called forth
from Innocent IV., 1246, and Alexander IV., 1260, instruc-
tions to the bishops not to protect such offenders. William
of Tyre, in his account of the First Crusade, and probably
reading into it some of the experiences of a later date, says
(Bk. 1. 16), "Many took the cross to elude their creditors." 4
If it is hard for us to unite the idea of war and bloodshed
with the achievement of a purely religious purpose, it must
1 Quicumque pro sola devotione . . . ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Je-
rusalem profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni posnitentia reputetur, Gottlob,
72 sqq. ; Mirbt. Quellen, 114.
2 Gesta, I. 1; Bee., IV. 124.
8 Lea, Hist, of Inquis., I. 44, says, " Crusaders were released from earthly
as well as heavenly justice by being classed with clerks and subjected only to
spiritual justice."
4 See Origin of the Temporal Privileges of Crusaders, by Edith C. Bram-
hall, " Am Jour, of Theol." 1901, pp. 279-292, and Gottlob, Kreuzablass,
pp. 140 sqq.
218 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
be remembered that no such feeling prevailed in the Middle
Ages. The wars of the period of Joshua and the Judges still
formed a stimulating example. Chrysostom, Augustine, and
other Church Fathers of the fifth century lifted up their voices
against the violent destruction of heathen temples which went
on in Egypt and Gaul ; but whatever compunction might have
been felt for the wanton slaying of Saracens by Christian
armies in an attitude of aggression, the compunction was
not felt when the Saracens placed themselves in the position
of holding the sacred sites of Palestine.
Bernard of Clairvaux said, pagans must not be slain if they
may by other means be prevented from oppressing the faith-
ful. However, it is better they should be put to death than
that the rod of the wicked should rest on the lot of the
righteous. The righteous fear no sin in killing the enemy
of Christ. Christ's soldier can securely kill and more safely
die. When he dies, it profits him ; when he slays, it profits
Christ. The Christian exults in the death of the pagan be-
cause Christ is glorified thereby. But when he himself is
killed, he has reached his goal. 1 The conquest of Palestine
by the destruction of the Saracens was considered a legal act
justified by the claim which the pope had by reason of the
preaching of the Apostles in that country and its conquest
by the Roman empire. 2
In answer to the question whether clerics might go to war,
Thomas Aquinas replied in the affirmative when the prize
was not worldly gain, but the defence of the Church or the
poor and oppressed. 3
1 De militibus templi, II., III., Migne, 182, 923 sq.
2 This is what Fulcher meant, liec., III. 323, when he put into Urban's
mouth the words nuncjure contra barbarospugnent qui olim fratres dimica-
bant. Two hundred years later Alvarus Pelagius made the same argument:
quamvis Saraceni Palestinam possident, juste tamen exinde depelluntur, etc.
See Schwab, Joh. Gerson, 26.
8 Summa, II. (2), 188, 3 ; Migne, III., 1366 sq. : militare propter aliquid
mundanum est omni religioni contrarium, non autem militare propter obse-
qnium Dei, etc. He adds that clerics going to war must act under the com-
iir...n<l of oriuces or of the Church, and not at their own suggestion.
48. CHARACTER AND CAUSES OP THE CRUSADES. 219
To other testimonies to the esteem in which the Crusaders
were held may be added the testimony o'f Matthew Paris.
Summing up the events of the half-century ending with
1250, he says: 1 "A great multitude of nobles left their
country to fight faithfully for Christ. All of these were
manifest martyrs, and their names are inscribed in indelible
characters in the book of life." Women forced their hus-
bands to take the cross. 2 And women who attempted to
hold their husbands back suffered evil consequences for it. 3
Kings who did not go across the seas had a passion for the
holy sepulchre. Edward I. commanded his son to take his
heart and deposit it there, setting apart 2000 for the ex-
pedition. Robert Bruce also wanted his heart to find its
last earthly resting-place in Jerusalem.
The Crusades began and ended in France. The French
element was the ruling factor, from Urban II., who was a
native of Chatillon, near Rheims, and Peter of Amiens, to
St. Louis. 4 The contemporary accounts of the Crusades are
for the most part written by Frenchmen. Guibert of Nogent
and other chroniclers regard them as especially the work of
their countrymen. The French expression, outre-mer, was
used for the goal of the Crusades. 6 The movement spread
through all Europe from Hungary to Scotland. Spain alone
forms an exception. She was engaged in a crusade of her own
against the Moors ; and the crusades against the Saracens in
1 Luard's ed., V. 196.
2 Baldric of Dol, Hist. Jrrus., I. 8; Bee., IV. 17: gaudebant uxores
abeuntibus maritis dilectissimis, etc.
8 Caesar of Heisterbach, Dial., X. 22, speaks of a woman suffering with
severe pains in childbirth who was delivered with ease, so soon as she con-
sented to her husband's going on a crusade.
4 The name Franks became the current designation for Europeans in the
East, and remains so to this day. The crusading enthusiasm did not fully
take hold of Germany till the twelfth century. Hauck, Kirchengesch.
Deutschlands, IV. 80.
5 The expression was a translation of the Latin ultra mare, used for the
East, and, so far as I know, for the first time by Gregory VII., Beg. II. 37 ;
Migne, 148, 390.
220 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the Holy Land and the Moors in Spain were equally com-
mended by an ecumenical council, the First Lateran
(can. 13). The Moors were finally expelled from Granada
under Ferdinand and Isabella, and then, unwearied, Spain
entered upon a new crusade against Jews and heretics at
home and the pagan Indians of Mexico and Peru. In Italy
and Rome, where might have been expected the most zeal
in the holy cause, there was but little enthusiasm. 1
The aim of the Crusades was the conquest of the Holy
Land and the defeat of Islam. Enthusiasm for Christ was
the moving impulse, with which, however, were joined the
lower motives of ambition, avarice, love of adventure, hope
of earthly and heavenly reward. The whole chivalry of
Europe, aroused by a pale-faced monk and encouraged by a
Hildebrandian pope, threw itself steel-clad upon the Orient
to execute the vengeance of heaven upon the insults and bar-
barities of Moslems heaped upon Christian pilgrims, and to
rescue the grave of the Redeemer of mankind from the grasp
of the followers of the False Prophet. The miraculous aid
of heaven frequently intervened to help the Christians and
confound the Saracens. 2
The Crusaders sought the living among the dead. They
mistook the visible for the invisible, confused the terrestrial
and the celestial Jerusalem, and returned disillusioned. 3
They learned in Jerusalem, or after ages have learned through
1 Gregorovius, IV. 288, says no traces of enthusiasm can be found in
Rome. " Senate and people would probably have laughed in derision had
Urban summoned them to rise in religious enthusiasm to forsake the ruins of
Rome and advance to the rescue of Jerusalem." The Crusades were a finan-
cial detriment to Rome by diverting pilgrimages from the tombs of the
Apostles to the tomb of the Saviour.
2 Here is one such miracle. At the battle of Ramleh, 1177, there was a
miraculous extension of the cross borne by the bishop of Bethlehem. It
reached to heaven and extended its arms across the whole horizon. The
pagans saw it, were confused, and fled. Hoveden, II. 133 sq.
8 Hegel, Philosophic der Gesch., 3d ed. 1848, p. 476, brings out this idea
most impressively.
48. CHARACTER AND CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES. 221
them, that Christ is not there, that He is risen, and ascended
into heaven, where He sits at the head of "a spiritual king-
dom. They conquered Jerusalem, 1099, and lost it, 1187;
they reconquered, 1229, and lost again, 1244, the city in which
Christ was crucified. False religions are not to be converted
by violence, they can only be converted by the slow but sure
process of moral persuasion. Hatred kindles hatred, and
those who take the sword shall perish by the sword. St.
Bernard learned from the failure of the Second Crusade that
the struggle is a better one which is waged against the sin-
ful lusts of the heart than was the struggle to conquer
Jerusalem.
The immediate causes of the Crusades were the ill treat-
ment of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem and the appeal of the
Greek emperor, who was hard pressed by the Turks. Nor
may we forget the feeling of revenge for the Mohammedans
begotten in the resistance offered to their invasions of Italy
and Gaul. 1 In 841 they sacked St. Peter's, and in 846
threatened Rome for the second time, and a third time under
John VIII. The Normans wrested a part of Sicily from the
Saracens at the battle of Cerame, 1063, took Palermo, 1072,
Syracuse, 1085, and the rest of Sicily ten years later. A
burning desire took hold of the Christian world to be in
possession of
" those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
For our advantage on the bitter cross."
SHAKESPEARE.
From an early day Jerusalem was the goal of Christian
pilgrimage. The mother of Constantine, Helena, according
to the legend, found the cross and certainly built the church
over the supposed site of the tomb in which the Lord lay.
Jerome spent the last period of his life in Bethlehem, trans-
1 Rohricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 6, says that in these struggles
" the crusading enthusiasm was born,"
222 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
lating the Scriptures and preparing for eternity. The effect
of such examples was equal to the station and fame of the
pious empress and the Christian scholar. In vain did such
Fathers as Gregory of Nyssa, 1 Augustine, and even Jerome
himself, emphasize the nearness of God to believers wherever
they may be and the failure of those whose hearts are not
imbued with His spirit to find Him even at Jerusalem.
The movement steadily grew. The Holy Land became
to the imagination a land of wonders, filled with the divine
presence of Christ. To have visited it, to have seen Jerusa-
lem, to have bathed in the Jordan, was for a man to have
about him a halo of sanctity. The accounts of returning
pilgrims were listened to in convent and on the street with
open-mouthed curiosity. To surmount the dangers of such
a journey in a pious frame of mind was a means of expiation
for sins. 2 Special laws were enacted in the pilgrim's behalf.
Hospitals and other beneficent institutions were erected for
their comfort along the main route and in Jerusalem.
Other circumstances gave additional impulse to the move-
ment, such as the hope of securing relics of which Palestine
and Constantinople were the chief storehouses ; and the op-
portunity of starting a profitable trade in silk, paper, spices,
and other products of the East.
These pilgrimages were not seriously interrupted by the
Mohammedans after their conquest of Jerusalem by Omar in
1 See the beautiful testimony of Gregory, who advised a Cappadocian abbot
against going with his monks to Jerusalem, Schaff, Ch. Hist. III. 906.
2 Fulke the Black, count of Anjou (987-1040), made three journeys to
Jerusalem in penance for sacrilege and other crimes. He had burned his
young wife at the stake dressed in her gayest attire, and caused his son to
crouch at his feet harnessed as an ass. At Jerusalem he showed his devo-
tion by going about with a halter about his neck. He bit off a piece of the
Lord's tombstone with his teeth and carried back to Europe objects most
sacred and priceless, such as the ringers of Apostles and the lamp in which
the holy fire was lit. Odolric, bishop of Orleans, gave a pound of gold for
the lamp and hung it up in the church at Orleans, where its virtue cured mul-
titudes of sick people.
48. CHARACTER AND CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES. 223
637, until Syria and Palestine passed into the hands of the
sultans of Egypt three centuries later. Under Hakim, 1010.
a fierce persecution broke out against the Christian residents
of Palestine and the pilgrims. It was, however, of short
duration and was followed by a larger stream of pilgrims
than before. The favorite route was through Rome and by
the sea, a dangerous avenue, as it was infested by Saracen
pirates. The conversion of the Hungarians in the tenth cen-
tury opened up the route along the Danube. Barons, princes,
bishops, monks followed one after the other, some of them
leading large bodies of pious tourists. In 1035 Robert of
Normandy went at the head of a great company of nobles.
He found many waiting at the gates of Jerusalem, unable to
pay the gold bezant demanded for admission, and paid it for
them. In 105-1 Luitbert, bishop of Cambray, is said to have
led three thousand pilgrims. In 1064 Siegfried, archbishop
of Mainz, was accompanied by the bishops of Utrecht, Bam-
berg, and Regensburg and twelve thousand pilgrims. 1 In
1092 Eric, king of the Danes, made the long journey. A
sudden check was put upon the pilgrimages by the Seljukian
Turks, who conquered the Holy Land in 1076. A rude and
savage tribe, they heaped, with the intense fanaticism of new
converts, all manner of insults and injuries upon the Chris-
tians. Many were imprisoned or sold into slavery. Those
who returned to Europe carried with them a tale of woe
which aroused the religious feelings of all classes.
The other appeal, coming from the Greek emperors, was of
less weight. 2 The Eastern empire had been fast losing its
hold on its Asiatic possessions. Romanus Diogenes was
1 Hauck, IV. 79.
2 Ekkehard, 5, Rec., V. 14, may exaggerate when he speaks of very fre-
quent letters and embassies from the Greek emperors to the West, per
legationes frequentissimas et epistolas etiam a nobis visas . . . lugubriter
inclamanter, etc. The letter of Alexius to Robert of Flanders, 1088, has
been the subject of much inquiry. Hagenineyer pronounces it genuine, after
a most careful investigation, Epistulce, etc., 10-44.
224 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
defeated in battle with the Turks and taken prisoner, 1071.
During the rule of his successor, an emir established himself
in Nicaea, the seat of the council called by the first Constan-
tine, and extended his rule as far as the shores of the sea of
Marmora. Alexius Comnenus, coming to the throne 1081,
was less able to resist the advance of Islam and lost Antioch
and Edessa in 1086. Thus pressed by his Asiatic foes, and
seeing the very existence of his throne threatened, he applied
for help to the West. He dwelt, it is true, on the desolations
of Jerusalem ; but it is in accordance with his imperial char-
acter to surmise that he was more concerned for the defence
of his own empire than for the honor of religion.
This dual appeal met a response, not only in the religious
spirit of Europe, but in the warlike instincts of chivalry;
and when the time came for the chief figure in Christen-
dom, Urban II., to lift up his voice, his words acted upon
the sensitive emotions as sparks upon dry leaves. l
Three routes were chosen by the Crusaders to reach the
Holy Land. The first was the overland route by way of
the Danube, Constantinople, and Asia Minor. The second,
adopted by Philip and Richard in the Third Crusade, was by
the Mediterranean to Acre. The route of the last two Cru-
sades, under Louis IX., was across the Mediterranean to
Egypt, which was to be made the base of operations from
which to reach Jerusalem.
49. The Call to the Crusades.
" the romance
Of many colored Life that Fortune pours
Round the Crusaders."
WORDSWORTH, Ecclesiastical Sonnets.
The call which resulted in the first expedition for the
recovery of Jerusalem was made by Pope Urban II. at the
1 Diehl, in Essays on the Crusades, 92, seems even to deny that an appeal
was ever made by the Byzantine emperor Alexius for aid to the West, and
49. THE CALL TO THE CRUSADES. 225
Council of Clermont, 1095. Its chief popular advocate was
Peter the Hermit.
The idea of such a movement was not born at the close
of the eleventh century. Gregory VII., appealed to by
Michael VII. of Constantinople, had, in two encyclicals,
1074, 1 urged the cause upon all Christians, and summoned
them to go to the rescue of the Byzantine capital. He
reminded them that the pagans- had forced their way almost
up to the walls of the city and killed many thousands of
their brethren like cattle. 2 He also repeatedly called atten-
tion to the project in letters to the counts of Burgundy and
Poitiers and to Henry IV. His ulterior hope was the sub-
jection of the Eastern churches to the dominion of the Apos-
tolic see. In the year 1074 he was able to announce to
Henry IV. that fifty thousand Christian soldiers stood read}'
to take up arms and follow him to the East, but Gregory
was prevented from executing his design by his quarrel with
the emperor.
There is some evidence that more than half a century
earlier Sergius IV., d. 1012, suggested the idea of an armed
expedition against the Mohammedans who had "defiled
Jerusalem and destroyed the church of the Holy Sepulchre."
Earlier still, Sylvester II., d. 1003, may have urged the same
project. 3
Peter the Hermit, an otherwise unknown monk of Amiens,
France, on returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, spread
speaks of it as an invention of a later time. Certainly no criticism could be
more unwarranted unless all the testimonies of the contemporary writers are
to be ruthlessly set aside.
1 Eeg., I. 49 ; II. 37, Migne, 148, 329, 390.
2 multa millia Christianorum quasi pecudfs occidisse, Reg., I. 49.
3 See Jules Lair, Etudes crit. sitr divers textes des X e et XI e siecles. Bulle
dupape Sergius IV., etc., Paris, 1899. Lair, in opposition to Riant, Pflugk-
Harttung, etc., gives reasons for accepting as genuine Sergius's letter, found
1857. For Sylvester's letter see Havet, Lettres de Gerbert, Paris, 1889.
Rohricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, 8, pronounces Sylvester's letter a
forgery, dating from 1095. Lair tries to prove it was written by Sergius IV.
Q
226 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
its tale of woes and horrors. l In Jerusalem he had seen the
archbishop, Simeon, who urged him to carry to Europe an
appeal for help against the indignities to which the Christians
were subjected. While asleep in the church of the Holy
Sepulchre and after prayer and fasting, Peter had a dream in
which Christ appeared to him and bade him go and quickly
spread the appeal that the holy place might be purged. 2 He
hurried westward, carrying a letter from Simeon, and se-
cured the ear of Urban at Rome. This is the story as told
by William of Tyre and by Albert of Aachen before him.
Alleged dreams and visions were potent forces during the
First Crusade, and it is altogether likely that many a pilgrim,
looking upon the desolation of Jerusalem, heard within him-
self the same call which Peter in imagination or in a real
dream heard the Lord making to him.
Urban listened to Peter's account as he had listened to the
accounts of other returning pilgrims. He had seen citizens
of Jerusalem itself with his own eyes, and exiles from Antioch,
bewailing the plight of those places and begging for alms. 3
1 The date of the pilgrimage is not given, but may be accepted as having
fallen between 1092-1094. Peter is called " the Hermit " by all the accounts,
beginning with the earliest, the Gesta Francorum. There is no good ground
for doubting that he was from Amiens, as Albert of Aachen distinctly states.
William of Tyre says from the "bishopric of Amiens." Hagenmeyer, p. 39,
accepts the latter as within the truth.
2 William of Tyre, Bk. I. 12, Rec., I. 35, gives only a few lines to the
visions and the words spoken by the Lord. His account of the meeting
with Urban is equally simple and scarcely less brief. Peter found, so he
writes, " the Lord Pope Urban in the vicinity of Rome and presented the let-
ters from the patriarch and Christians of Jerusalem and showed their misery
and the abominations which the unclean races wrought in the holy places.
Thus prudently and faithfully he performed the commission intrusted to
him."
8 At the Council of Clermont Urban made reference to the "very many
reports" which had come of the desolation of Jerusalem, Fulcher, Sec., III.
324. Robert the Monk, I. 1, Rec., III. 727, says relatio gravis scepissime
jam ad avres nostras pervenit. According to Baldric he appealed to the
many among his hearers who could vouch for the desolate condition of
the holy places from their own experience, Rec., IV. 14. See Hagenmeyer,
74-77.
49. THE CALL TO THE CRUSADES. 227
Peter, as he journeyed through Italy and across the Alps, 1
proclaimed the same message. The time for action had
come.
At the Council of Piacenza, in the spring of 1095, en-
voys were present from the emperor Alexius Comnenus and
made addresses, invoking aid against the advancing Turks. 2
In the following November the famous Council of Clermont,
Southern France, was held, which decreed the First Crusade. 3
The council comprised a vast number of ecclesiastics and
laymen, especially from France. Urban II. was present in
person. On the day of the opening there were counted four-
teen archbishops, two hundred and fifty bishops, and four
hundred abbots. Thousands of tents were pitched outside
the walls. On the ninth day, the pope addressed the mul-
titude from a platform erected in the open air. It was a
fortunate moment for Urban, and has been compared to
Christmas Day, 800, when Charlemagne was crowned. 4 The
address was the most effective sermon ever preached by a pope
or any other mortal. It stirred the deepest feelings of the
hearers and was repeated throughout all Europe. 5
At Clermont, Urban was on his native soil and probably
spoke in the Provencal tongue, though we have only Latin
reports. When we recall the general character of the age
and the listening throng, with its mingled feelings of love of
1 So William of Tyre, Bk. I. 13. Later writers extend the journey of
Peter inordinately.
2 William of Tyre does not mention this embassy. It may be because of
the low opinion he had of Alexius, whom (II. 5) he pronounces scheming
and perfidious.
8 There is no statement that the council formally decreed the Crusade.
For the acts we are dependent upon scattered statements of chroniclers
and several other unofficial documents.
4 Ranke, Weltgeschichte. According to William of Tyre, Peter the Her-
mit was present at Clermont. The contemporary writers do not mention his
presence.
5 Gregorovius, IV. 287, is right when he says, " the importance of Urban's
speech in universal history outweighs the orations of Demosthenes and
Cicero."
228 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
adventure and credulous faith, we cannot wonder at the re-
sponse made to the impassioned appeals of the head of Chris-
tendom. Urban reminded his hearers that they, as the elect
of God, must carry to their brethren in the East the succor for
which they had so often cried out. The Turks, a " Persian
people, an accursed race," 1 had devastated the kingdom of
God by fire, pillage, and sword and advanced as far as the
Arm of St. George (the Hellespont). Jerusalem was laid
waste. Antioch, once the city of Peter, was under their
yoke. As the knights loved their souls, so they should fight
against the barbarians who had fought against their brothers
and kindred. 2 Christ himself would lead the advancing
warriors across sea and mountains. Jerusalem, "the navel
of the world," and the land fruitful above all others, a para-
dise of delights, awaited them. 3 " The way is short, the toil
will be followed by an incorruptible crown." 4
A Frenchman himself, Urban appealed to his hearers as
1 Robert the Monk, I. 1, Rec., III. 727. The contemporary writers, giv-
ing an account of Urban's speech, are Baldric, Guibert, Fulcher, and Robert
the Monk. All of them were present at Clermont. William of Tyre greatly
elaborates the address, and Rohricht calls William's account an invention
which is a masterpiece of its kind, eine Erdichtung die ein Meisterstuck
seiner Art, etc., Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 20. Rohricht, pp. 235-239,
and Munro, " Am. Hist. Rev.," 1906, pp. 231-243, make interesting attempts
to reconstruct Urban's address. The different accounts are not to be regarded
as contradictory, but as supplementary one of the other. Rohricht, p. 20,
expresses the opinion that none of the accounts of the address is " accurate."
No doubt the spirit and essential contents are preserved. Urban made promi-
nent the appeals for aid from the East, the desolations of Jerusalem, and the
sufferings of Christians in the East. See Munro.
a Fulcher, Sec., III. 324. I follow chiefly the accounts of Fulcher and
Robert. Robert represents the appeals for aid as coming from Jerusalem
and Constantinople.
8 Robert the Monk, I. 2, Rec., III. 729. The expression "navel of the
earth," umbilicus terrarum, used here by Robert, was a common one for
Jerusalem.
4 Baldric, Rec., IV. 15, via brevis est, labor permodicus est qui tamen
immarcescibilem vobis rependet coronam. Gregory VII., Reg., II. 37, Migne,
148, 390, had made the same promise, quoting 2 Cor. iv. 17, that for the toils
of a moment the Crusaders would secure an eternal reward.
49. THE CALL TO THE CRUSADES. 229
Frenchmen, distinguished above all other nations by remark-
able glory in arms, courage, and bodily prowess. He ap-
pealed to the deeds of Charlemagne and his son Lewis, who
had destroyed pagan kingdoms and extended the territory
of the Church.
To this moving appeal the answer came back from the
whole throng, " God wills it, God wills it." 1 " It is," added
the pope, "it is the will of God. Let these words be your
war-cry when you unsheathe the sword. You are soldiers
of the cross. Wear on your breasts or shoulders the blood-
red sign of the cross. Wear it as a token that His help will
never fail you, as the pledge of a vow never to be recalled." 2
Thousands at once took the vow and sewed the cross on
their garments or branded it upon their bare flesh. Adhemar,
bishop of Puy, knelt at Urban's feet, asking permission to
go, and was appointed papal legate. The next day envoys
came announcing that Raymund of Toulouse had taken the
vow. The spring of 1096 was set for the expedition to start.
Urban discreetly declined to lead the army in person. 3
The example set at Clermont was followed by thousands
throughout Europe. Fiery preachers carried Urban's mes-
sage. The foremost among them, Peter the Hermit, traversed
Southern France to the confines of Spain and Lorraine and
went along the Rhine. Judged by results, he was one of the
most- successful of evangelists. His appearance was well
suited to strike the popular imagination. He rode on an ass,
his face emaciated and haggard, his feet bare, a slouched
1 Deus vult, Deos lo volt, Diex el volt. These are the different forms in
which the response is reported. For this response in its Latin form, Robert
the Monk is our earliest authority, I. 2, Bee., III. 729. He says una voci-
feratio ''Deus vult, Deus vult."
2 In the First Crusade all the crosses were red. Afterwards green and
white colors came into use. Urban himself distributed crosses. Guibert,
II. 5, Eec., IV. 140, and Fulcher, I. 4, state that Urban had the Crusaders
wear the cross as a badge.
3 Urban's letters, following up his speech at Clermont, are given by Hagen-
meyer, Epistulce, p. 136 sqq.
230 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
cowl on his head, 1 and a long mantle reaching to his ankles,
and carrying a great cross. In stature he was short. 2 His
keen wit, 3 his fervid and ready, but rude and unpolished, elo-
quence, 4 made a profound impression upon the throngs which
gathered to hear him. 5 His messages seemed to them divine. 6
They plucked the very hairs from his ass' tail to be preserved
as relics. A more potent effect was wrought than mere
temporary wonder. Reconciliations between husbands and
wives and persons living out of wedlock were effected, and
peace and concord established where there were feud and liti-
gation. Large gifts were made to the preacher. None of the
other preachers of the Crusade, Volkmar, Gottschalk, and
Emich, 7 could compare with Peter the Hermit for eloquence
and the spell he exercised upon the masses. He was held in
higher esteem than prelates and abbots. 8 And Guibert of
Nogent says that he could recall no one who was held in like
honor. 9
In a few months large companies were ready to march
against the enemies of the cross.
1 Petrum more heremi vilissima cappa tegebat, Radulf of Caen. The
above description is taken from strictly contemporary accounts.
2 The statura brevis of Radulf becomes in William of Tyre's account pu-
sillus, persona contemptibilis.
8 I have thus translated Radulf's spiritus acer.
4 Albert of Aachen : neminem invenerunt qui tarn ferocissimo et superbo
loqui auderet quousque Petrus.
6 So Guibert speaks of the crowds listening to him as tanta populorum
multitude. Hagenmeyer, p. 114, accepting Guibert's statement, refers to
immense throngs, ungeheure Zahl.
6 Guibert : quidquid agebat namque sen loquebatur quasi quiddam subdi-
vinum videbatur.
7 So Ekkehard, XII., Eec. , V. 20 sq. who has something derogatory to say of
all of these preachers and also of Peter's subsequent career. Quern postea
multi hypocritam esse dicebant.
8 Robert the Monk, I. 5, Sec., III. 731. Super ipsos proesules et abbates
apice religionis efferebatur.
9 Guibert : neminem meminerim similem honore haberi. Baldric speaks
of him as Petrus quidam magnus heremita, or as we would say, " that great
hermit, Peter."
50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 231
A new era in European history was begun. 1 A new pas-
sion had taken hold of its people. A new arena of conquest
was opened for the warlike feudal lord, a tempting field of
adventure and release for knight and debtor, an oppor-
tunity of freedom for serf and villein. All classes, lay and
clerical, saw in the expedition to the cradle of their faith a
solace for sin, a satisfaction of Christian fancy, a heaven-
appointed mission. The struggle of states with the papacy
was for the moment at an end. All Europe was suddenly
united in a common and holy cause, of which the supreme
pontiff was beyond dispute the appointed leader.
50. The First Crusade and the Capture of Jerusalem.
"And what if my feet may not tread where He stood,
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood,
Nor my eyes see the cross which He bowed Him to bear,
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer,
Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near
To the meek and the lowly and penitent here ;
And the voice of Thy Love is the same even now,
As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow."
WHITTIER.
The 15th of August, 1096, the Feast of the Assumption,
fixed by the Council of Clermont for the departure of the
Crusaders, was slow in coming. The excitement was too in-
tense for the people to wait. As early as March throngs of
both sexes and all ages -began to gather in Lorraine and at
Treves, and to demand of Peter the Hermit and other leaders
to lead them immediately to Jerusalem. 2 It was a hetero-
1 Hegel, Philosophic der Gesch., p. 444, calls the Crusades " the culminat-
ing point of the Middle Ages." Contemporaries like Guibert of Nogent, 123,
could think of no movement equal in glory with the Crusades. Ordericus Vi-
talis, III. 458, praised the union of peoples of different tongues in a project
so praiseworthy.
2 For the account of these early expeditions, we are chiefly dependent
upon Albert of Aachen. Guibert makes no distinction of sections, and has
only a cursory notice of the expeditions before the arrival of Peter in Con-
stantinople.
232 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
geneous multitude of devout enthusiasts and idle adventur-
ers, without proper preparation of any kind. The priest for-
sook his cell, the peasant left his plough and placed his wife
and children on carts drawn by oxen, and thus went forth to
make the journey and to fight the Turk. At the villages
along the route the children cried out, "Is this Jerusalem, is
this Jerusalem?" William of Malmesbury wrote (IV. 2)
"The Welshman left his hunting, the Scot his fellowship with
lice, the Dane his drinking party, the Norwegian his raw
fish. Fields were deserted of their husbandmen; whole
cities migrated. . . . God alone was placed before their
eyes."
The unwieldy bands, or swarms, were held together
loosely under enthusiastic but incompetent leaders. The
first swarm, comprising from twelve thousand to twenty
thousand under Walter the Penniless, 1 marched safely
through Hungary, but was cut to pieces at the storming of
Belgrade or destroyed in the Bulgarian forests. The leader
and a few stragglers were all that reached Constantinople.
The second swarm, comprising more than forty thousand,
was led by the Hermit himself. There were knights not a
few, and among the ecclesiastics were the archbishop of Salz-
burg and the bishops of Chur and Strassburg. On their
march through Hungary they were protected by the Hun-
garian king; but when they reached the Bulgarian frontier,
they found one continuous track of blood and fire, robbery
and massacre, marking the route of their predecessors.
Only a remnant of seven thousand reached Constantinople,
and they in the most pitiful condition, July, 1096. Here
they were well treated by the Emperor Alexius, who trans-
ported them across the Bosphorus to Asia, where they were
to await the arrival of the regular army. But they pre-
1 Sine Pecunia, Sansavoir, Habenichts. These preliminary expeditions,
Rohricht and other historians call Die, Ziifje der Battern, the campaigns of
the peasants.
50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 233
ferred to rove, marauding and plundering, through the rich
provinces. Finally, a false rumor that the vanguard had
captured Nicsea, the capital of the Turks in Asia Minor,
allured the main body into the plain of Nicsea, where large
numbers were surrounded and massacred by the Turkish
cavalry. Their bones were piled into a ghastly pyramid,
the first monument of the Crusade. Walter fell in the
battle ; Peter the Hermit had fled back to Constantinople
before the battle began, unable to control his followers.
The defeat of Nicsea no doubt largely destroyed Peter's
reputation. 1
A third swarm, comprising fifteen thousand, mostly Ger-
mans under the lead of the monk Gottschalk, was massacred
by the Hungarians.
Another band, under count Emich of Leiningen, began
its career, May, 1096, by massacring and robbing the Jews in
Mainz and other cities along the Rhine. Albert of Aachen, 2
who describes these scenes, does not sympathize with this
lawlessness, but saw a divine judgment in its almost com-
plete annihilation in Hungary. This band was probably a
part of the swarm, estimated at the incredible number of
two hundred thousand, 3 led by banners bearing the likeness
of a goose and a goat, which were considered as bearers of
the divine Spirit. 4 Three thousand horsemen, headed by
some noblemen, attended them, and shared the spoils taken
1 See Hagenraeyer, 204 sq. Peter apologized to the emperor for the defeat
on the ground of his inability to control his followers, who, he declared, were
unworthy to see Jerusalem. Anna Comnena calls Peter the " inflated Latin."
2 I. 26.
8 Anna Comnena says the Crusaders flowed together from all directions
like rivers. She gives the number of Peter's army as eighty thousand
foot and one hundred thousand horse. Fulcher speaks of the numbers set-
ting out from the West as "an immense assemblage. The islands of the sea
and the whole earth were moved by God to make contribution to the host.
The sadness was for those who remained behind, the joy for those who de-
parted."
4 This is upon the testimony of Albert of Aachen and Guibert. See
Rohricht, Erster Kreuzzitg, 240 sq. , and references there given.
234 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
from the Jews. 1 When they arrived at the Hungarian
frontier they had to encounter a regular array. A panic
seized them, and a frightful carnage took place.
These preliminary expeditions of the first Crusade may
have cost three hundred thousand lives.
The regular army consisted, according to the lowest state-
ments, of more than three hundred thousand. It proceeded
through Europe in sections which met at Constantinople and
Nictea. Godfrey, starting from lower Lorraine, had under
him thirty thousand men on foot and ten thousand horse.
He proceeded along the Danube and by way of Sofia and Phil-
ipoppolis. Hugh of Vermandois went by way of Rome, where
he received the golden banner, and then, taking ship from
Bari to Durazzo, made a junction with Godfrey in November,
1096, under the walls of Constantinople. Bohemund, with a
splendid following of one hundred thousand horse and thirty
thousand on foot, 2 took the same route from Bari across the
Adriatic. Raymund of Toulouse, accompanied by his count-
ess, Elvira, and the papal legate, bishop Adhemar, 3 traversed
Northern Italy on his way eastward. The last of the main
armies to start was led by Robert, duke of Normandy, and
Stephen of Blois, who crossed the Alps, received the pope's
blessing at Lucca, and, passing through Rome, transported
their men across the Adriatic from Bari and Brindisi.
Godfrey of Bouillon 4 was accompanied by his brothers,
1 Mannheimer, Die Judenverfolgungen in Speier, Worms und Mainz im
Jahre 1096, wahrend des ersten Kreuzzuges, Darmstadt, 1877. Hagenmeyer,
p. 139, clears Peter of Amiens of the shameful glory of initiating this racial
massacre, and properly claims it for count Emich and his mob. See also
Rohricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, 41-46.
a Albert of Aachen, II. 18.
8 Gibbon calls him " a respectable prelate alike qualified for this world
and the next."
* Bouillon, not to be confounded with Boulogne-sur-raer, on the English
Channel, is a town in Belgian Luxemburg, and was formerly the capital of the
lordship of Bouillon, which Godfrey mortgaged to the bishop of Liege in 1095.
It has belonged to Belgium since 1831.
50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 2o5
Baldwin and Eustace. Hugh, count of Vermandois, was a
brother of Philip I. of France. Robert of Normandy was
the eldest son of William the Conqueror, and had made
provision for his expedition by pledging Normandy to his
brother, William Rufus, for ten thousand marks silver.
Raymund, count of Toulouse, was a veteran warrior, who
had a hundred thousand horse and foot at his command,
and enjoyed a mingled reputation for wealth, wisdom, pride,
and greed. Bohemund, prince of Tarentum, was the son of
Robert Guiscard. His cousin, Tancred, was the model cava-
lier. Robert, count of Flanders, was surnamed " the Sword
and Lance of the Christians." Stephen, count of Chartres,
Troyes, and Blois, was the owner of three hundred and sixty-
five castles. These and many other noblemen constituted
the flower of the French, Norman, and Italian nobility.
The moral hero of the First Crusade is Godfrey of Bouil-
lon, a descendant of Charlemagne in the female line, but
he had no definite command. He had fought in the war of
emperor Henry IV. against the rebel king, Rudolf of
Swabia, whom he slew in the battle of Molsen, 1080. He
had prodigious physical strength. With one blow of his
sword he clove asunder a horseman from head to saddle.
He was as pious as he was brave, and took the cross for the
single purpose of rescuing Jerusalem from the hands of the
infidel. He used his prowess and bent his ancestral pride
to the general aim. Contemporary historians call him a
holy monk in military armor and ducal ornament. His
purity and disinterestedness were acknowledged by his
rivals.
Tancred, his intimate friend, likewise engaged in the en-
terprise from pure motives. He is the poetic hero of the
First Crusade, and nearly approached the standard of " the
parfite gentil knyght " of Chaucer. He distinguished him-
self at Nicsea, Dorylseum, Antioch, and was one of the first
to climb the walls of Jerusalem. He died in Antioch, 1112.
236 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
His deeds were celebrated by Raoul de Caen and Torquato
Tasso. 1
The emperor Alexius, who had so urgently solicited the
aid of Western Europe, became alarmed when he saw the hosts
arriving in his city. They threatened to bring famine into
the land and to disturb the order of his realm. He had wished
to reap the benefit of the Crusade, but now was alarmed lest
he should be overwhelmed by it. His subtle policy and pre-
cautions were felt as an insult by the Western chieftains.
In diplomacy he was more than their match. They expected
fair dealing and they were met by duplicity. He held Hugh
of Vermandois in easy custody till he promised him fealty.
Even Godfrey and Tancred, the latter after delay, made the
same pledge. Godfrey declined to receive the emperor's
presents for fear of receiving poison with his munificence.
The Crusaders had their successes. Nicaea was taken
June 19, 1097, and the Turks were routed a few weeks later
in a disastrous action at Dorylseum in Phrygia, which turned
into a more disastrous flight. But a long year elapsed till
they could master Antioch, and still another year came to
an end before Jerusalem yielded to their arms. The success
of the enterprise was retarded and its glory diminished by
the selfish jealousies and alienation of the leaders which cul-
minated in disgraceful conflicts at Antioch. The hardships
and privations of the way were terrible, almost beyond de-
scription. The Crusaders were forced to eat horse flesh,
camels, dogs, and mice, and even worse. 2 The sufferings
from thirst exceeded, if possible, the sufferings from hunger.
To these discouragements was added the manifest treachery
of the Greek emperor at the capture of Nicaea. 3
1 Gibbon : " In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the
virtues of a perfect knight, the true spirit of chivalry, which inspired the
generous sentiments and social offices of man far better than the base philoso-
phy, or the baser religion, of the times." 2 Fulcher, I. 13, Bee., III. 336.
8 Raymund of Agiles says Alexius treated the crusading army in such wise
that so "long as ever he lives, the people will curse him and call him a traitor."
50. FIKST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 237
During the siege of Antioch, which had fallen to the Sel-
juks, 1084, the ranks were decimated by famine, pestilence,
and desertion, among the deserters being Stephen of
Chartres and his followers. Peter the Hermit and William
of Carpentarius were among those who attempted flight, but
were caught in the act of fleeing and severely reprimanded
by Bohemund. 1 Immediately after the first recapture of the
city, through the treachery of Phirouz, an Armenian, the
Crusaders were themselves besieged by an army of two hun-
dred thousand under Kerboga of Mosul. Their languishing
energies were revived by the miraculous discovery of the
holy lance, which pierced the Saviour's side. This famous
instrument was hidden under the altar of St. Peter's church.
The hiding place was revealed in a dream to Peter Barthele-
my, the chaplain of Raymund of Toulouse. 2 The sacred
weapon was carried in front of the ranks by Raymund of
Agiles, one of the historians of the Crusade, and it aroused
great enthusiasm. Kerboga withdrew and the city fell into
the Crusaders' hands, June 28, 1098. 3 Bohemund appropri-
ated it to himself as his prize. Baldwin, after the fall of
Nicaea, had done the same with Edessa, which became the
easternmost citadel of the Crusaders. Others followed
the examples of these leaders and went on independent
expeditions of conquest. Of those who died at Antioch was
Adhemar.
1 The contemporary authorities represent the reprimand as given to Car-
pentarius. As Hagenmeyer suggests, Peter was included and Carpentarius'
name alone mentioned because he was of royal blood.
2 Among those who helped to dig for the weapon was Raymuud of Agiles.
Its authenticity was a matter of dispute, Adhemar being one of those who
doubted. Barthelemy went through the ordeal of fire to prove the truth of
his statements, but died in consequence of the injuries he suffered.
3 According to Robert the Monk, IV., Rec., III. 824, a heavenly sign was
granted on the eve of the final attack, a flame burning in the western sky,
ignis de coelo veniens ab occidente. One of the interesting remains of the
crusadal period are two letters written by Stephen, count of Chartres, to
his wife Adele, the one before Nicsea and the other during the siege of An-
tioch. They are given in Hagenmeyer, Epistulce, pp. 138, 149.
238 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The culmination of the First Crusade was the fall of
Jerusalem, July 15, 1099. It was not till the spring fol-
lowing the capture of Antioch, that the leaders were able to
compose their quarrels and the main army was able again
to begin the march. The route was along the coast to
Ctesarea and thence southeastward to Ramleh. Jerusalem
was reached early in June. The army was then reduced
to twenty thousand fighting men. 1 In one of his frescos
in the museum at Berlin, representing the six chief epochs in
human history, Kaulbach has depicted with great effect the
moment when the Crusaders first caught sight of the Holy
City from the western hills. For the religious imagination
it was among the most picturesque moments in history as
it was indeed one of the most solemn in the history of the
Middle Ages. The later narratives may well have the es-
sence of truth in them, which represent the warriors falling
upon their knees and kissing the sacred earth. Laying
aside their armor, in bare feet and amid tears, penitential
prayers, and chants, they approached the sacred precincts. 2
A desperate but futile assault was made on the fifth day.
Boiling pitch and oil were used, with showers of stones and
other missiles, to keep the Crusaders at bay. The siege
then took the usual course in such cases. . Ladders, scaling
towers, and other engines of war were constructed, but the
wood had to be procured at a distance, from Shechem. The
trees around Jerusalem, cut down by Titus twelve centuries
before, had never been replaced. The city was invested
on three sides by Raymund of Toulouse, Godfrey, Tancred,
Robert of Normandy, and other chiefs. The suffering due
1 The figures are differently given. See Sybel, 412, and Rohricht,
Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, 183. William of Tyre gives the number as
twenty-one thousand, and the army defending Jerusalem as forty thousand.
2 Raymund of Agiles reports that the Crusaders forgot the exhortation
of Peter Barthelemy to make the last part of the journey barefoot. " They
remembered their weariness no more, and hastening their steps reached the
walls amidst tears and praises."
50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 239
to the summer heat and the lack of water was intense.
The valley and the hills were strewn with dead horses,
whose putrefying carcasses made life in the camp almost
unbearable. In vain did the Crusaders with bare feet, the
priests at their head, march in procession around the walls,
hoping to see them fall as the walls of Jericho had fallen
before Joshua. 1 Help at last came with the arrival of a
Genoese fleet in the harbor of Joppa, which brought work-
men and supplies of tools and food.
Friday, the day of the crucifixion, was chosen for the final
assault. A great tower surmounted by a golden cross was
dragged alongside of the walls and the drawbridge let down.
At a critical moment, as the later story went, a soldier of
brilliant aspect 2 was seen on the Mount of Olives, and God-
frey, encouraging the besiegers, exclaimed: " It is St. George
the martyr. He has come to our help." According to
most of the accounts, Letold of Tournay 3 was the first to
scale the walls. It was noticed that the moment of this
crowning feat was three o'clock, the hour of the Saviour's
death.
The scenes of carnage which followed belong to the
many dark pages of Jerusalem's history and showed how, in
the quality of mercy, the crusading knight was far below
the ideal of Christian perfection. The streets were choked
with the bodies of the slain. The Jews were burnt with
their synagogues. The greatest slaughter was in the tem-
ple enclosure. With an exaggeration which can hardly be
credited, but without a twinge of regret or a syllable of
1 On this occasion Peter the Hermit and Arnulf, afterwards archbishop of
Jerusalem, made addresses on the Mount of Olives to restore unity among
the crusading leaders, especially Tancred and Raymund. Albert of Aachen,
VI. 8, .Bee., IV. 471, says, ad populos sermones . . . plurimam discordiam
quce inter Peregrinos de diversis causis excreverat exstinxerunt. Tancred
had stirred up much jealousy by raising his banner over Bethlehem. Hagen-
meyer, p. 259, accepts Albert's account as genuine against Sybel.
2 Miles splendidiis et refulgens.
3 Guibert, VII. 7, Rec., IV. 226 ; Robert the Monk, VII., Sec., III. 867.
240 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
excuse, it is related that the blood of the massacred in the
temple area reached to the very knees and bridles of the
horses. 1 " Such a slaughter of the pagans had never been
seen or heard of. The number none but God knew." 2
Penitential devotions followed easily upon the gory butch-
ery of the sword. Headed by Godfrey, clad in a suit of
white linen, the Crusaders proceeded to the church of the
Holy Sepulchre and offered up prayers and thanksgivings.
William of Tyre relates that Adhemar and others, who
had fallen by the way, were seen showing the path to the
holy places. The devotions over, the work of massacre was
renewed. Neither the tears of women, nor the cries of chil-
dren, nor the protests of Tancred, who for the honor of
chivalry was concerned to save three hundred, to whom he
had promised protection none of these availed to soften
the ferocity of the conquerors.
As if to enhance the spectacle of pitiless barbarity, Saracen
prisoners were forced to clear the streets of the dead bodies
and blood to save the city from pestilence. "They wept
and transported the dead bodies out of Jerusalem," is the
heartless statement of Robert the Monk. 3
Such was the piety of the Crusaders. The religion of the
Middle Ages combined self-denying asceticism with heart-
less cruelty to infidels, Jews, and heretics. "They cut
down with the sword," said William of Tyre, "every one
whom they found in Jerusalem, and spared no one. The
1 So Raymund of Agiles, an eyewitness, usque ad genua et usque ad
frenos equorum, XX., .Bee., III. 300. This he calls " the righteous judgment
of God."
2 So the Gesta : tales occisiones de paganorum gente nullus unquam
audivit nee vidit . . . nemo scit, numerum eorum nisi solus deus. The slain
are variously estimated from forty thousand to one hundred thousand. Gui-
bert, Gesta, VII. 7, Bee., IV. 227, further says that in the temple area there
was such a sea of blood, sanguinis unda, as almost to submerge the pedes-
trian.
8 IX., JRec., III. 869. Robert gives an awful picture of the streets filled with
dismembered bodies and running with gore.
50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 241
victors were covered with blood from head to foot." In the
next breath, speaking of the devotion of the Crusaders, the
archbishop adds, " It was a most affecting sight which rilled
the heart with holy joy to see the people tread the holy
places in the fervor of an excellent devotion." The Crusaders
had won the tomb of the Saviour and gazed upon a frag-
ment of the true cross, which some of the inhabitants were
fortunate enough to have kept concealed during the siege.
Before returning to Europe, Peter the Hermit received the
homage of the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem, who re-
membered his visit as a pilgrim and his services in their
behalf. This was the closing scene of his connection with
the Crusades. 1 Returning to Europe, he founded the monas-
tery at Huy, in the diocese Liege, and died, 1115. A statue
was dedicated to his memory at Amiens, June 29, 1854. He
is represented in the garb of a monk, a rosary at his waist,
a cross in his right hand, preaching the First Crusade.
Urban II. died two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem and
before the tidings of the event had time to reach his ears.
No more favorable moment could have been chosen for the
Crusade. The Seljukian power, which was at its height in
the eleventh century, was broken up into rival dynasties and
factions by the death of Molik Shah, 1092. The Crusaders
entered as a wedge before the new era of Moslem conquest
and union opened.
NOTE ON THE RELATION OF PETER THE HERMIT TO THE 'FlRST CRUSADE.
The view of Peter the Hermit, presented in this work, does not accord
with the position taken by most of the modern writers on the Crusades.
It is based on the testimony of Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre,
historians of the First Crusade, and is, that Peter visited Jerusalem as
a pilgrim, conversed with the patriarch Simeon over the desolations of
the city, had a dream in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, returned to
Europe with letters from Simeon which he presented to the pope, and then
1 William of Tyre is the earliest witness to this scene. Leaving out
embellishments, it does not seem to be at all unnatural. Hagenmeyer, pp.
265-269, calls it the " sheer invention of William's fancy."
R
242 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
preached through Italy and beyond the Alps, and perhaps attended the
Council of Clermont, where, however, he took no prominent part.
The new view is that these occurrences were fictions. It was first set
forth by von Sybel in his work on the First Crusade, in 1841. Sybel's work,
which marks an epoch in the treatment of the Crusades, was suggested by
the lectures of Ranke, 1837. l Its author, after a careful comparison of the
earliest accounts, announced that there is no reliable evidence that Peter
was the immediate instigator of the First Crusade, and that not to him
but to Urban II. alone belongs the honor of having originated the movement.
Peter did not make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, meet Urban, or preach about
the woes of the Holy City prior to the assembling of the Synod of Clermont.
These views, with some modification, have been advocated by Hagenmeyer
in his careful and scholarly work on Peter the Hermit and in other writings on
the First Crusade. 2 In our own country the same view has been set forth by
eminent scholars. Professor Oliver J. Thatcher, in an article on the Latin
Sources of the First Crusade, 9 says, "The stories about Peter the Hermit,
his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, his visions there, his journey to the pope at
Rome, his successful appeals to Urban to preach a crusade, and Peter's com-
manding position as one of the great preachers and leaders of the Crusade,
all are found to be without the least foundation in fact." Dr. Dana C. Munro
has recently declared that the belief that Peter was the instigator of the
First Crusade has long since been abandoned. 4
It is proper that the reasons should be given in brief which have led to the
retention of the old view in this volume. The author's view agrees with the
judgment expressed by Archer, Story of the Crusades, p. 27, that the account
of Albert of Aachen " is no doubt true in the main."
Albert of Aachen wrote his History of Jerusalem about 1120-1125, 5 that
is, while many of the Crusaders were still alive who took part in the siege of
Jerusalem, 1099. William, archbishop of Tyre, was born probably in Jeru-
salem about 1130. He was a man of learning, acquainted with Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, and Arabic ; well read in the Bible, as his quotations show,
and travelled in Europe. He is one of the ablest of the mediaeval historians,
and his work is the monumental history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
He was by his residence thoroughly acquainted with Palestine. It is not
unworthy of mention that William's History represents the " office of the
historian to be not to write what pleases him, but the material which the
1 Sybel, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzsugs, p. ii.
2 Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremite, p. 102, says, Dem Papste allein ist der
Ruhm zu erhalten den ihm der Einsiedler von Amiens bis auf unsere Tage
zur grosseren Halfte streitig gemacht hat. Also Sybel, p. 243.
8 Report of the Am. Hist. Association, 1900, p. 504 sq. See also the very
emphatic statements of G. L. Burr in art. The year 1000 and the Ante-
cedents of the Crusades in the " Am. Hist. Rev.," April, 1901, pp. 429-439,
and Trans, and Reprints of the Univ. of Pa., 1894, pp. 19 sqq.
4 The Speech of Urban II. etc., in " Am. Hist. Rev.," 1906, p. 232.
6 He says he reports what he heard, ex auditu et relatione,
50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 243
time offers," bk. XXIII. From the sixteenth to the twenty-third book he
writes from personal observation. William stands between the credulous en-
thusiasm of the first writers on the Crusades and the cold scepticism of some
modern historians.
The new view, setting aside these two witnesses, bases its conclusion on
the strictly contemporary accounts. These are silent about any part Peter
took in the movement leading to the First Crusade prior to the Council of
Clermont. They are : (1) the Gesta Francorum, written by an unknown
writer, who reached Jerusalem with the Crusaders, wrote his account about
1099, and left the original, or a copy of it, in Jerusalem. (2) Robert the
Monk, who was in Jerusalem, saw a copy of the Gesta, and copied from it.
His work extends to 1099. He was present at the Council of Clermont.
(3) Raymund, canon of Agiles, who accompanied the Crusaders to Jerusalem.
(4) Fulcher of Chartres, who was present at Clermont, continued the his-
tory to 1125, accompanied the Crusaders to Jerusalem, and had much to do
with the discovery of the holy lance. (5) The priest Tudebodus, who copied
from the Gesta before 1111 and added very little of importance. (6) Ekkehard
of Urach, who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 1101. (7) Radulph of Caen,
who in 1107 joined Tancred and related what he heard from him. (8) Guibert
of Nogent, who was present at Clermont and wrote about 1110. (9) Baldric
of Dol, who was at Clermont and copied from the Gesta in Jerusalem.
Another contemporary, Anna Comnena, b. 1083, is an exception and
reports the activity of Peter prior to the Council of Clermont, and says he
made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but was not permitted by the Turks to enter.
He then hastened to Europe and preached about the woes of the city in order
to provide a way to visit it again. Hagenmeyer is constrained by Anna's
testimony to concede that Peter actually set forth on a pilgrimage to Jeru-
salem, but did not reach the city.
The silence of nine contemporary writers is certainly very noticeable.
They had the means of knowing the facts. Why, then, do we accept the
later statements of Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre ? These are the
considerations.
1. The silence of contemporary writers is not a final argument against
events. Eusebius, the chief historian of the ancient Church, utterly ignores
the Catacombs. Silence, said Dr. Philip Schaff, referring to the Crusades,
"is certainly not conclusive," "Reformed Ch. Rev.," 1893, p. 449. There
is nothing in the earlier accounts contradictory to Peter's activity prior to
the Clermont synod. One and another of the writers omit important events
of the First Crusade, but that is not a sufficient reason for our setting those
events aside as fictitious. The Gesta has no account of Urban's speech at
Clermont or reference to it. Guibert and Fulcher leave out in their reports
of Urban's speech all reference to the appeal from Constantinople. Why
does the Gesta pass over with the slightest notice Peter's breaking away
from Germany on his inarch to Constantinople ? This author's example is
followed by Baldric, Tudebod, Fulcher, and Raymund of Agiles. These
writers have not a word to say about Gottschalk, Volkmar, and Emich. As
Hagenmeyer says, pp. 129, 157, no reason can be assigned for these silences,
244 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1019-1294.
and yet the fact of these expeditions and the calamities in Hungary are not
doubted.
2. The accounts of Albert of Aachen and of William of Tyre are simply
told and not at all unreasonable in their essential content. William definitely
makes Peter the precursor of Urban. He was, he said, " of essential service
to our lord the pope, who determined to follow him without delay across the
mountains. He did him the service of a forerunner and prepared the minds
of men in advance so that he might easily win them for himself." There is
no indication in the archbishop's words of any purpose to disparage Urban's
part in preparing for the Crusade. Urban followed after John the Baptist.
William makes Urban the centre of the assemblage at Clermont and gives to
his address great space, many times the space given to the experiences of
Peter, and all honor is accorded to the pope for the way in which he did his
part, bk. I. 16.
3. Serious difficulties are presented in the theory of the growth of the
legend of Peter's activity. They are these : (1) Albert of Aachen lived
close to the events, and at the most twenty-five years elapsed between the
capture of Jerusalem and his writing. (2) There is nothing in Peter's con-
duct during the progress of the Crusade to justify the growth of an heroic
legend around him. The very contrary was the case. Moreover, neither
Albert nor William know anything about Peter before his pilgrimage.
Hagenmeyer has put the case in the proper light when he says, " Not a single
authority suggests that Peter enjoyed any extraordinary repute before his
connection with the Crusade. On the contrary, every one that mentions his
name connects it with the Crusade," p. 120. (3) It is difficult to understand
how the disposition could arise on the part of any narrator to transfer the
credit of being the author of the Crusade from a pope to a monk, especially
such a monk as Peter turned out to be. In reference to this consideration,
Archer, p. 26, has well said, " There is little in the legend of Peter the Hermit
which may not very well be true, and the story, as it stands, is more plausible
than if we had to assume that tradition had transferred the credit from a
pope to a simple hermit." (4) We may very well account for Anna Com-
nena's story of Peter's being turned back by the Turks by her desire to parry
the force of his conversation with the Greek patriarch Simeon. It was her
purpose to disparage the Crusade. Had she admitted the message of Simeon
through Peter to the pope, she would have conceded a strong argument for
the divine approval upon the movement. As for Anna, she makes mistakes,
confusing Peter once with Adhemar and once with Peter Barthelemy.
(6) All the accounts mention Peter. He is altogether the most prominent
man in stirring up interest in the Crusade subsequent to the council. Hagen-
meyer goes even so far as to account for his success by the assumption that
Peter made telling use of his abortive pilgrimage, missgluckte Pilgerfahrt. As
already stated, Peter was listened to by " immense throngs " ; no one in the
memory of the abbot of Nogent had enjoyed so much honor. " He was held
in higher esteem than prelates and abbots," says Robert the Monk. As if to
counteract the impression upon the reader, these writers emphasize that
Peter's influence was over the rude and lawless masses, and, as Guibert says,
50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 245
that the bands which followed him were the dregs of France. Now it is
difficult to understand how a monk, before unknown, who had never been in
Jerusalem, and was not at the Council of Clermont, could at once work into
his imagination such vivid pictures of the woe and wails of the Christians of
the East as to attain a foremost pre-eminence as a preacher of the Crusade.
(6) Good reasons can be given for the omission of Peter's conduct prior
to the Council of Clermont by the earliest writers. The Crusade was a holy
and heroic movement. The writers were interested in magnifying the part
taken by the chivalry of Europe. Some of them were with Peter in the
camp, and they found him heady, fanatical, impracticable, and worse. He
probably was spurned by the counts and princes. Many of the writers were
chaplains of these chieftains, Raymund, Baldwin, Tancred, Bohemund.
The lawlessness of Peter's bands has been referred to. The defeat at Nicsea
robbed Peter of all glory and position he might otherwise have had with the
main army when it reached Asia. 1 In Antioch he brought upon himself
disgrace for attempting flight, being caught in the act by Tancred and Bohe-
mund. The (festa gives a detailed account of this treachery, and Guibert 2
compares his flight to an angel falling from heaven. It is probably with
reference to it that Ekkehard says, " Many call him hypocrite." 8 Strange
to say, Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre omit all reference to his treach-
erous flight. 4 It is not improbable that, after the experiences they had of
the Hermit in the camp, and the disregard and perhaps the contempt in which
he was held by the princes, after his inglorious campaign to Constantinople
and Nicsea, the early writers had not the heart to mention his services prior
to the council. Far better for the glory of the cause that those experiences
should pass into eternal forgetfulness.
Why should legend then come to be attached to his memory ? Why
should not Adhemar have been chosen for the honor which was put upon
this unknown monk who made so many mistakes and occupied so subordinate
a position in the main crusading army ? Why stain the origin of so glorious
a movement by making Peter with his infirmities and ignoble birth respon-
sible for the inception of the Crusade ? It would seem as if the theory were
more probable that the things which led the great Crusaders to disparage, if
not to ridicule, Peter induced the earlier writers to ignore his meritorious
activity prior to the Council of Clermont. After the lapse of time, when the
memory of his follies was not so fresh, the real services of Peter were again
recognized. For these reasons the older portrait of Peter has been regarded
as the true one in all its essential features.
1 Nach einer solchen Katastrophe war offenbar auch bei diesen alles An-
sehen fur ihn dabei, Hagenineyer, p. 204.
2 Ut stellce quoque juxta Apocalypsim de coelo cadere viderentur, Petrtis
ille, etc.
3 Ekkehard XIII., JSec., V. 21, says that Peter's cohorts became the object
of derision to the Turks as soon as they reached Asia Minor, cohortes , . .
paganis fuerantjam ludibrio factce.
* Hagenmeyer, pp. 220 sqq., 243, suggests that at the time of William's
writing such things were no longer told.
246 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
51. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1099-1187.
LITERATURE. G. T. DE THAUMASSIERE : Assises et bans usages du royaume
de Jerusalem, etc., Paris, 1690, 1712; Assises de Jerusalem, in Eecueil
des Historiens des croisades, 2 vols., Paris, 1841-1843. HODY: Gode-
froy de Bouillon et les rois Latins de Jems., 2d ed., Paris, 1859.
ROHRICHT: Eegesta Eegni Hierosolymitani, Innsbruck, 1893; Gesch.
des Konigreichs Jerus. 1100-1291, Innsbruck, 1898. LANE-POOLE:
Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerus., N.Y., 1898. The first
biography of Saladin in English, written largely from the standpoint of
the Arab historians. C. R. CONDER : The Latin Kingd. of Jerus.,
London, 1899. F. KUHN: Gesch. der ersten Patriarchen von Jerus.,
Leipzig, 1886. FUNK: art. Jerusalem, Christl. Konigreich, in " Wetzer-
Welte," VI. p. 1335 sqq.
Eight days after the capture of the Holy City a permanent
government was established, known as the Latin kingdom
of Jerusalem. Godfrey was elected king, but declined the
title of royalty, unwilling to wear a crown of gold where the
Saviour had worn a crown of thorns. 1 He adopted the title
Baron and Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. The kingdom
from its birth was in need of help, and less than a year after
the capture of the city the patriarch Dagobert made an
appeal to the " rich " German nation for reinforcements. 2
It had. a perturbed existence of less than a century, and in
that time witnessed a succession of nine sovereigns.
1 The official title of the kings was rex, Latinorum in Hierusalem. In
rejecting the crown, says William of Tyre, " Godfrey did so as a believing
prince. He was the best of kings, the light and mirror of all others," lumen
et speculum, IX. 9, JKec., I. 377. The clergy had dreamed of the complete
subjection of the civil government of Jerusalem to the spiritual government
under the patriarch. The first patriarch not only secured for his jurisdic-
tion one-fourth of Jerusalem and Jaffa, but the promise from Godfrey of the
whole of both cities, provided Godfrey was successful in taking Cairo or some
other large hostile city, or should die without male heirs. See Rohricht,
Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 218.
2 See Dagobert's appeal in Hagenmeyer, Epistulce, 176 sq., 412 sqq. He
speaks of "Jerusalem as the most excellent of all places for sanctity, " and
says that " for this reason it was oppressed by the pagans and infidels."
Fulcher, writing of the year 1100, declares that there were only three hundred
knights and as many footmen left for the defence of Jerusalem, Jaffa, and
Ramleh. See quotation in Hagenmeyer, 415.
51. THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.
Godfrey extended his realm, but survived the capture of
Jerusalem only a year, dying July 18, 1100. He was
honored and lamented as the most disinterested and devout
among the chieftains of the First Crusade. His body was
laid away in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, where his
reputed sword and spurs are still shown. On his tomb was
the inscription : " Here lies Godfrey of Bouillon, who con-
quered all this territory for the Christian religion. May his
soul be at rest with Christ." 1
With the Latin kingdom was established the Latin
patriarchate of Jerusalem. The election of Arnulf, chaplain
to Robert of Normandy, was declared irregular, and Dagobert,
or Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, was elected in his place
Christmas Day, 1099. 2 Latin sees were erected throughout
the land and also a Latin patriarchate of Antioch. Dagobert
secured large concessions from Godfrey, including the ac-
knowledgment of his kingdom as a fief of the patriarch.
After the fall of Jerusalem, in 1187, the patriarchs lived in
Acre. 3
The constitution and judicial procedure of the new realm
were fixed by the Assizes of Jerusalem. These were depos-
ited under seal in the church of the Holy Sepulchre and are
also called the Letters of the Holy Sepulchre. 4 They were
afterwards lost, and our knowledge of their contents is derived
from the codes of Cyprus and the Latin kingdom of Con-
stantinople, which were founded upon the Jerusalem code.
These statutes reproduced the feudal system of Europe.
The conquered territory was distributed among the barons,
1 Hie jacet inclitus dux Godefridus de Bouillon qui totam sitam terram
aeqitisivit cultui christiano, cujus anima reynet cum Christo.
2 According to Rayinund of Agiles, Arnulf was a man of loose life and his
amours subjects of camp songs.
3 From the fall of Acre, 1291 to 1848, the patriarchs, with two exceptions,
lived in Rome. In 1848 Valerga, appointed patriarch by Pius IX., took up
his residence in Jerusalem.
4 Wilken devotes a long treatment to the subject, I. pp. 307-424.
248 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1204.
who held their possessions under the king of Jerusalem as
overlord. The four chief fiefs were Jaffa and Ascalon,
Kerat, east of the Jordan, Galilee, and Sidon. The counts
of Tripoli and Edessa and the prince of Antioch were inde-
pendent of the kingdom of Jerusalem. A system of courts
was provided, the highest being presided over by the king.
Trial by combat of arms was recognized. A second court
provided for justice among the burgesses. A third gave it to
the natives. Villeins or slaves were treated as property ac-
cording to the discretion of the master, but are also mentioned
as being subject to the courts of law. The slave and the
falcon were estimated as equal in value. Two slaves were
held at the price of a horse arid three slaves at the price of
twelve oxen. The man became of age at twenty-five, the
woman at twelve. The feudal system in Europe was a
natural product. In Palestine it was an exotic.
The Christian occupation of Palestine did not bring with
it a reign of peace. The kingdom was torn by the bitter
intrigues of barons and ecclesiastics, while it was being
constantly threatened from without. The inner strife was
the chief source of weakness. The monks settled down in
swarms over the country, and the Franciscans became the
guardians of the holy places. The illegitimate offspring of
the Crusaders by Moslem women, called pullani, were a
degenerate race, marked by avarice, faithlessness, and de-
bauchery. 1
Godfrey was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, count of
Edessa, who was crowned at Bethlehem. He was a man of
intelligence and the most vigorous of the kings of Jerusalem.
He died of a fever in Egypt, and his body was laid at the
side of his brother's in Jerusalem.
During Baldwin's reign, 1100-1118, the limits of the
1 FuJani, "anybodies." The designation fulan ibn fulan, "so and so,
the son of so and so," is a most opprobrious mode of address among the
Arabs.
51. THE LATIN KINGDOM OP JERUSALEM. 249
kingdom were greatly extended. 1 Caesarea. fell in 1101, St.
Jean d'Acre, otherwise known as Ptolemais, in 1104, and
Berytus, or Beyrut, in 1110. Sidon capitulated to Sigurd,
son of the king of Norway, who had with him ten thousand
Crusaders. One-third of Asia Minor was reduced, a part of
the territory reverting to the Greek empire. Damascus never
fell into European hands. With the progress of their arms,
the Crusaders reared strong castles from Petra to the far
North as well as on the eastern side of the Jordan. Their
ruins attest the firm purpose of their builders to make their
occupation permanent. " We who were Westerners," said
Fulcher of Chartres, " are now Easterners. We have for-
gotten our native land." It is proof of the attractiveness of
the cause, if not also of the country, that so many Crusaders
sought to establish themselves there permanently. Many
who went to Europe returned a second time, and kings spent
protracted periods in the East.
During Baldwin's reign most of the leaders of the First
Crusade died or returned to Europe. But the ranks were
being continually recruited by fresh expeditions. Pascal II.,
the successor of Urban II., sent forth a call for recruits.
The Italian cities furnished fleets, and did important service
in conjunction with the land forces. The Venetians, Pisans,
and Genoese established quarters of their own in Jerusalem,
Acre, and other cities. Thousands took the cross in Lom-
bardy, France, and Germany, and were led by Ansel in,
archbishop of Milan, Stephen, duke of Burgundy, William,
duke of Aquitaine, Ida of Austria, and others. Hugh of
1 The following mode of reducing a tribe of robbers is characteristic. The
robbers took refuge in a cave. Baldwin resorted to smoking them out. Two
emerged; Baldwin spoke kindly to them, dressed one up and sent him back
with fair promises, while he put the other to death. Ten others emerged.
One was sent back and the other nine put to death. The same method was
employed till two hundred and thirty had been induced to come forth and
were put to death. The fires were then started again till all came forth and
met the same fate.
250 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Vermandois, who had gone to Europe, returned. Bohemund
likewise returned with thirty-four thousand men, and op-
posed the Greek emperor. At least two Christian armies
attempted to attack Islam in its stronghold at Bagdad.
Under Baldwin II., 1118-1131, the nephew of Baldwin I.,
Tyre was taken, 1124. This event marks the apogee of the
Crusaders' possessions and power.
In the reign of Fulke of Anjou, 1131-1143, the husband of
Millicent, Baldwin II. 's daughter, Zengi, surnamed Imad-
ed-din, the Pillar of the Faith, threatened the very existence
of the Frankish kingdom.
Baldwin III., 1143-1162, came to the throne in his
youth. l His reign witnessed the fall of Edessa into Zengi's
hands, 1144, and the progress of the Second Crusade, as also
the rise of Zengi's son, Nureddin, the uncle of Saladin, who
conquered Damascus, 1154.
Amalric, or Amaury, 1162-1173, carried his arms and di-
plomacy into Egypt, and saw the fall of the Fatimite dynasty
which had been in power for two centuries. The power in the
South now became identified with the splendid and warlike
abilities of Saladin, who, with Nureddin, healed the divisions
of the Mohammedans, and compacted their power from
Bagdad to Cairo. Henceforth the kingdom of Jerusalem
stood on the defensive. The schism between the Abassidss
and the Fatimites had made the conquest of Jerusalem in
1099 possible.
Baldwin IV., 1173-1184, a boy of thirteen at his acces-
sion, was, like Uzziah, a leper. Among the regents who
conducted the affairs of the kingdom during his reign was
the duke of Montferrat, who married Sybilla, the king's
sister. In 1174 Saladin, by the death of Nureddin, became
caliph of the whole realm from Damascus to the Nile, and
started on the path of God, the conquest of Jerusalem.
Baldwin V., 1184-1186, a child of five, and son of Sybilla,
1 From this point William of Tyre writes as an eye-witness, XVI. sqq.
51. THE LATIN KINGDOM OP .JERUSALEM. 251
was succeeded by Guy of Lusignan, Sybilla's second hus-
band. Saladin met Guy and the Crusaders at the village
of Hattin, on the hill above Tiberius, where tradition has
placed the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount. The Tem-
plars and Hospitallers were there in force, and the true cross
was carried by the bishop of Acre, clad in armor. On
July 5, 1187, the decisive battle was fought. The Crusaders
were completely routed, and thirty thousand are said to have
perished. Guy of Lusignan, the masters of the Temple l
and the Hospital, and Reginald of Chatillon, lord of Kerak,
were taken prisoners by the enemy. Reginald was struck to
death in Saladin's tent, but the king and the other captives
were treated with clemency. 2 The true cross was a part of
the enemy's booty. The fate of the Holy Land was de-
cided.
On Oct. 2, 1187, Saladin entered Jerusalem after it had
made a brave resistance. The conditions of surrender were
most creditable to the chivalry of the great commander.
There were no scenes of savage butchery such as followed
the entry of the Crusaders ninety years before. The inhabit-
ants were given their liberty for the payment of money, and
for forty days the procession of the departing continued.
The relics stored away in the church of the Holy Sepulchre
were delivered up by the conqueror for the sum of fifty
thousand bezants, paid by Richard 1. 3
Thus ended the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Since then
the worship of Islam has continued on Mount Moriah
1 According to the letter of Terricius, Master of the Temple, two hundred
and ninety Templars perished, and the Saracens covered the whole land
from Tyre to Gaza like swarms of ants. Kichard of Hoveden, an. 1187,
says the Templars fought like lions.
2 Saladin offered a glass of water to Guy. When Guy handed It to Regi-
nald, Saladin exclaimed, " I did not order that. You gave it," and at once
despatched Reginald by his own hand, or through a servant. Reginald had
plundered a caravan in which Saladin's sister was travelling. Lane-Poole,
Saladin, p. 215.
8 The bezant was worth three dollars.
252 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1.049-1294.
without interruption. The Christian conquests were in con-
stant danger through the interminable feuds of the Crusaders
themselves, and, in spite of the constant flow of recruits and
treasure from Europe, they fell easily before the unifying
leadership of Saladin.
After 1187 a line of nominal kings of Jerusalem pre-
sented a romantic picture in European affairs. The last
real king, Guy of Lusignan, was released, and resumed his
kingly pretension without a capital city. Conrad of Mont-
ferrat, who had married Isabella, daughter of Amalric, was
granted the right of succession. He was murdered before
reaching the throne, and Henry of Champagne became king
of Jerusalem on Guy's accession to the crown of Cyprus.
In 1197 the two crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem were
united in Amalric II. At his death the crown passed to
Mary, daughter of Conrad of Montferrat. Mary's husband
was John of Brienne. At the marriage of their daughter,
lolanthe, to the emperor Frederick II., that sovereign as-
sumed the title, King of Jerusalem.
52. The Fall of Edessa and the Second Crusade.
LITERATDRE. ODO OF DEUiL (near Paris), chaplain of Louis VII. : Depro-
fectione Ludovici VII. in Orientem 1147-1149 in Migne, 185, translated
by GUIZOT: Collection, XXIV. pp. 279-384. OTTO OF FREISING, d.
1158, half brother of Konrad III. and uncle of Fred. Barbarossa : Chron-
icon, bk. VII., translated in Pertz-Wattenbach, Geschichtschreiber der
Deutschen Vorzeit, Leipzig, 1881. Otto accompanied the Crusade.
KUGLER: Gesch. des 2ten Kreuzzuges, Stuttgart, 1866. The De con-
sideratione and De militibus Christi of Bernard and the Biographies of
Bernard by NEANDER, ed. by DEUTSCH, II. 81-116 ; MORISON, pp.
366-400 ; STORRS, p. 416 sqq. ; VACANDARD, II. 270-318, 431 sqq.
F. MARION CRAWFORD has written a novel on this Crusade : Via Cntcis,
a Story of the Second Crusade, N.Y., 1899.
The Second Crusade was led by two sovereigns, the
emperor Konrad III. and Louis VII. of France, and owed its
origin to the profound impression made in Europe by the
fall of Edessa and the zealous eloquence of St. Bernard.
52. FALL OP EDESSA AND THE SECOND CEUSADE. 253
Edessa, the outer citadel of the Crusader's conquests, fell,
December, 1144. Jocelyn II., whose father, Jocelyn I., suc-
ceeded Baldwin as proprietor of Edessa, was a weak and
pleasure-loving prince. The besiegers built a fire in a breach
in the wall, a piece of which, a hundred yards long, cracked
with the flames and fell. An appalling massacre followed
the inrush of the Turks, under Zengi, whom the Christians
called the Sanguinary. 1
Eugenius III. rightly regarded Zengi's victory as a threat
to the continuance of the Franks in Palestine, and called
upon the king of France to march to their relief. The
forgiveness of all sins and life eternal were promised to all
embarking on the enterprise who should die confessing their
sins. 2 The pope also summoned Bernard to leave his con-
vent, and preach the crusade. Bernard, the most conspicuous
personage of his age, was in the zenith of his fame. He
regarded the summons as a call from God, 3 and proved to be
a leader worthy of the cause.
At Easter tide, 1146, Louis, who had before, in remorse for
his burning the church at Vitry with thirteen hundred per-
sons, promised to go on a crusade, assembled a great council
at Vezelai. Bernard was present and made such an over-
powering impression by his address that the hearers pressed
forward to receive crosses. He himself was obliged to cut his
robe to pieces to meet the demand. 4 Writing to Eugenius,
he was able to say that the enthusiasm was so great that
" castles and towns were emptied of their inmates. One man
could hardly be found for seven women, and the women were
1 See Otto of Freising, VII. 30.
2 Gottlob, Kreuzablass, 106 sqq. Eugenius quoted Urban II. 's decree of
indulgence at Olermont.
8 De considerations, II. 1, Keinkeris' translation, pp. 31-37. In this
chapter of his famous tract, Bernard explains and justifies his course in
the Crusade.
* Odo, I. 1, cceperunt undique conclamando cruces expetere . . . coactus
est vrstes suas in cruces scindere et seminare.
254 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
being everywhere widowed while their husbands were still
alive."
From France Bernard proceeded to Basel and Constance
and the cities along the Rhine, as far as Cologne. As in the
case of the First Crusade, a persecution was started against
the Jews on the Rhine by a monk, Radulph. Bernard firmly
set himself against the fanaticism and wrote that the Church
should attempt to gain the Jews by discussion, and not
destroy them by the sword.
Thousands flocked to hear the fervent preacher, who added
miraculous healings to the impression of his eloquence.
The emperor Konrad himself was deeply moved and won.
During Christmas week at Spires, Bernard preached before
him an impassionate discourse. " What is there, O man,"
he represented Christ as saying, seated in judgment upon
the imperial hearer at the last day, " What is there which
I ought to have done for thee and have not done?" He
contrasted the physical prowess, 1 the riches, and the honors
of the emperor with the favor of the supreme judge of
human actions. Bursting into tears, the emperor exclaimed :
" I shall henceforth not be found ungrateful to God's mercy.
I am ready to serve Him, seeing I am admonished by Him."
Of all his miracles Bernard esteemed the emperor's decision
the chief one.
Konrad at once prepared for the expedition. Seventy
thousand armed men, seven thousand of whom were
knights, assembled at Regensburg, and proceeded through
Hungary to the Bosphorus, meeting with a poor reception
along the route. The Greek emperor Manuel and Konrad
were brothers-in-law, having married sisters, but this tie
was no protection to the Germans. Guides, provided by
Manuel, "children of Belial" as William of Tyre calls
1 As a proof of Konrad's strength, William of Tyre, XVII. 4, relates that
at the siege of Damascus he hewed a man clad in armor through head, neck,
and shoulder to the armpit with one stroke of his blade.
52. FALL OF EDESSA AND THE SECOND CKUSADE. 255
them, treacherously led them astray in the Cappadocian
mountains. 1 Famine, fever, and the attack's of the enemy
were so disastrous that when the army fell back upon Nicsea,
not more than one-tenth of its original number remained.
Louis received the oriflamme from Eugenius's own hands
at St. Denis, Easter, 1147, and followed the same route taken
by Konrad. His queen, Eleanor, famed for her beauty, and
many ladies of the court accompanied the army. The two
sovereigns met at Nicsea and proceeded together to Ephesus.
Konrad returned to Constantinople by ship, and Louis, after
reaching Attalia, left the body of his army to proceed by
land, and sailed to Antioch.
At Antioch, Eleanor laid herself open to the serious charge
of levity, if not to infidelity to her marriage vow. She and
the king afterward publicly separated at Jerusalem, and
later were divorced by the pope. Eleanor was then joined
to Henry of Anjou, and later became the queen of Henry II.
of England. Konrad, who reached Acre by ship from Con-
stantinople, met Louis at Jerusalem, and in company with
Baldwin III. the two sovereigns from the West offered their
devotions in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. At a council
of the three held under the walls of Acre, 2 they decided to
direct their arms against Damascus before proceeding to the
more distant Edessa. The route was by way of Lake
Tiberias and over the Hermon. The siege ended in complete
failure, owing to the disgraceful quarrels between the camps
and the leaders, and the claim of Thierry, count of Flanders,
who had been in the East twice before, to the city as his own.
Konrad started back for Germany, September, 1148. Louis,
1 Bk. XVI. 20. William suggests that Manuel's jealousy was aroused
because Konrad asserted the title, king of the Romans. Diehl, Essays on
the Crusades, p. 107, doubts the statement that Manuel's guides intentionally
misled and betrayed the Germans. He, however, acknowledges that Greek
inhabitants of Asia Minor "fleeced or starved the Latins."
2 William of Tyre, XVII., gives a list of the distinguished personages
present, Bishop Otto of Freising, the emperoi-'s brother, being among them.
256 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
after spending the winter in Jerusalem, broke away the
following spring. Bernard felt the humiliation of the failure
keenly, and apologized for it by ascribing it to the judgment
of God for the sins of the Crusaders and of the Christian
world. "The judgments of the Lord are just," he wrote,
" but this one is an abyss so deep that I dare to pronounce
him blessed who is not scandalized by it." 1 As for the
charge that he was responsible for the expedition, Bernard
exclaimed, " Was Moses to blame, in the wilderness, who
promised to lead the children of Israel to the Promised
Land? Was it not rather the sins of the people which
interrupted the progress of their journey ? "
Edessa remained lost to the Crusaders, and Damascus
never fell into their power.
53. The Third Crusade. 1189-1192.
For Richard I.: Itinerarium perigrinorum etgestaregisRicardi, ed. byStubbs,
London, 1864, Rolls Series, formerly ascribed to Geoffrey de Vinsauf,
but, since Stubbs, to Richard de Templo or left anonymous. Trans, in
Chronicles of the Crusades, Bohn's Libr., 1870. The author accom-
panied the Crusade. DE HOVEDEN, ed. by Stubbs, 4 vols., London, 1868-
1871 ; Engl. trans, by Riley, vol. II. pp. 63-270. GIRALDUS CAMBREN-
818 : Itinerarium Cambrice, ed. by Brewer and Dimock, London, 7 vols.
1861-1877, vol. VI., trans, by R. C. HOARE, London, 1806. RICHARD DE
DEVIZES : Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi, etc., London, 1838, trans.
in Bohn's Chron. of the Crusades. ROGEII WENDOVER. DE JOIN-
VILLE: Crusade of St. Louis, trans, in Chron. of the Crus.
For full list of authorities on Richard see art. Richard by ARCHER
in Diet, of Nat. Biog. G. P. R. JAMES: Hist, of the Life of R. Cceur
de Lion, new ed. 2 vols. London, 1854. T. A. ARCHKK: The Crusade
of Richard I., being a collation of Richard de Devizes, etc., London,
1868. GRUHN: Der Kreuzzug Richard I., Berlin, 1892.
For Frederick Barbarossa : ANSBERT, an eye-witness : Hist, de expeditione
Frid., 1187-1196, ed. by Jos. Dobrowsky, Prague, 1827. For other
sources, see WATTENBACH : Deutsche Geschichtsquellen, II. 303 sqq., and
POTTHAST: Bibl. Hist., II. 1014, 1045, etc. KARL FISCHER : Gesch. des
Kreuzzugs Fried. I., Leipzig, 1870. H. PRUTZ: Kaiser Fried. I., 3 vols.
Dantzig, 1871-1873. VON RAUMER: Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, vol. II.
5th ed. Leipzig, 1878. GIESEBRECHT : Deutsche Kaiserzeit, vol. V.
1 De consider atione, II. 1.
53. THE THIRD CRUSADE. 257
For Saladin : BAHA-ED-DIN, a member of Saladin's court, 1145-1234, the
best Arabic Life, in the Recueil, Histt. Orientaux, etc., III., 1884, and
in Palestine, Pilgrim's Text Soc., ed. by Sir C. W. Wilson, London,
1897. MARIN : Hist, de Saladin, sulthan (TEyypte et de Syrie, Paris,
1758. LANE-POOLE : Saladin and the Fall of Jerusalem, New York,
1898, a full list and an estimate of Arab authorities are given, pp. iii-xvi.
See also the general Histories of the Crusades and RANKE : Weltgesch.,
VIII.
The Third Crusade was undertaken to regain Jerusalem,
which had been lost to Saladin, 1187. It enjoys the distinc-
tion of having had for its leaders the three most powerful
princes of Western Europe, the emperor Frederick Barba-
rossa, Philip Augustus, king of France, and the English king
Richard I., surnamed Coeur de Lion, or the Lion-hearted. 1 It
brought together the chivalry of the East and the West at
the time of its highest development and called forth the
heroism of two of the bravest soldiers of any age, Saladin
and Richard. It has been more widely celebrated in romance
than any of the other Crusades, from the songs of the mediae-
val minstrels to Lessing in his Nathan the Wise and Walter
Scott in Talisman. But in spite of the splendid armaments,
the expedition was almost a complete failure.
On the news of Saladin's victories, Urban III. is alleged
to have died of grief. 2 An official summons was hardly nec-
essary to stir the crusading ardor of Europe from one end to
the other. Danes, Swedes, and Frisians joined with Welsh-
men, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans in readiness
for a new expedition. A hundred years had elapsed since
the First Crusade, and its leaders were already invested with
1 The story of Richard's seizing a lion and tearing out its throbbing heart
was a subject of English romance in the fourteenth century and probably of
French romance in the thirteenth century.
2 It required at least fifteen days for a ship to go from Acre to Marseilles,
and about the same time for news to reach Rome from Jerusalem. The
indulgences offered to Crusaders by Alexander III., on the news of Saladin's
conquests in Egypt and his defeat of the Christians at Banias, 1181, are
quoted by Gottlob, 119 sq. Alexander appealed to the examples of Urban II.
and Eugenius III.
258 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
a halo of romance and glory. The aged Gregory VIII., whose
reign lasted less than two months, 1187, spent his expiring
breath in an appeal to the princes to desist from their feuds.
Under the influence of William, archbishop of Tyre, and
the archbishop of Rouen, Philip Augustus of France and
Henry II. of England laid aside their quarrels and took
the cross. At Henry's death his son Richard, then thirty-
two years of age, set about with impassioned zeal to make
preparations for the Crusade. The treasure which Henry
had left, Richard augmented by sums secured from the sale
of castles and bishoprics. 1 For ten thousand marks he
released William of Scotland from homage, and he would
have sold London itself, so he said, if a purchaser rich
enough had offered himself. 2 Baldwin, archbishop of Can-
terbury, supported his sovereign, preaching the Crusade in
England and Wales, and accompanied the expedition. 3 The
famous Saladin tax was levied in England, and perhaps also
in France, requiring the payment of a tithe by all not join-
ing the Crusade.
Richard and Philip met at Vezelai. Among the great
lords who joined them were Hugh, duke of Burgundy,
Henry II., count of Champagne, and Philip of Flanders.
As a badge for himself and his men, the French king chose a
red cross, Richard a white cross, and the duke of Flanders
a green cross.
In the meantime Frederick Barbarossa, who was on the
verge of seventy, had reached the Bosphorus. Mindful of
his experiences with Konrad III., whom he accompanied on
the Second Crusade, he avoided the mixed character of Kon-
rad's army by admitting to the ranks only those who were
physically strong and had at least three marks. The army
1 He sold the archbishopric of York for 3,000 pounds. Henry is reported
to have left 900,000 pounds in gold and silver. Rog. of Wendover, an. 1180.
2 Richard of Devizes, X.
* Giraldus Cambrensis accompanied the archbishop and gathered the
materials for his Itinerary on the way.
53. THE THIRD CRUSADE. 269
numbered one hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand sat
in the saddle. Frederick of Swabia accompanied his father,
the emperor.
Setting forth from Ratisbon in May, 1189, the German
army had proceeded by way of Hungary to Constantinople.
The Greek emperor, Isaac Angelus, far from regarding the
Crusaders' approach with favor, threw Barbarossa's commis-
sioners into prison and made a treaty with Saladin. 1 He
coolly addressed the western emperor as "the first prince of
Germany." The opportunity was afforded Frederick of
uniting the East and West once more under a single sceptre.
Wallachians and Servians promised him their support if he
would dethrone Isaac and take the crown. But though
there was provocation enough, Frederick refused to turn
aside from his purpose, the reconquest of Jerusalem, 2 and in
March, 1190, his troops were transferred across the Bospho-
rus. He took Iconium, and reached Cilicia. There his
career was brought to a sudden termination on June 10 in
the waters of the Kalycadnus river into which he had plunged
to cool himself. 3 His flesh was buried at Antioch, and his
bones, intended for the crypts of the church of the Holy
Sepulchre, were deposited in the church of St. Peter, Tyre.
A lonely place, indeed, for the ashes of the mighty monarch,
and far removed from those of his great predecessor, Charle-
magne -at Aachen! Scarcely ever has a life so eminent
had such a tragic and deplored ending. In right imperial
fashion, Frederick had sent messengers ahead, calling upon
1 Frederick announced his expedition in a letter to Saladin, in which he
enumerated the tribes that were to take part in it, from the " tall Bavarian "
to the sailors of Venice and Pisa. See Itin. reg. Ricardi de Hoveden, etc.
2 Ranke, VIII. 246 sqq., spicily speculates upon the possible consequences
of Isaac's dethronement, and, as a German, regrets that Frederick did not
take the prize, Es war ein Moment das nicht so leicht wieder kommen
Tconnte.
3 Another account by one who accompanied the expedition was that in his
impatience to proceed, Barbarossa strove to swim the river and was drowned.
Ranke, VIII. 249, regards the view taken in the text as the better one.
260 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Saladin to abandon Jerusalem and deliver up the true cross.
With a demoralized contingent, Frederick of Swabia reached
the walls of Acre, where he soon after became a victim of the
plague, October, 1190.
Philip and Richard reached the Holy Land by the Medi-
terranean. They sailed for Sicily, 1190, Philip from Genoa,
Richard from Marseilles. Richard found employment on the
island in asserting the rights of his sister Joan, widow of
William II. of Sicily, who had been robbed of her dower by
William's illegitimate son, Tancred. " Quicker than priest
can chant matins did King Richard take Messina." 1 In
spite of armed disputes between Richard and Philip, the two
kings came to an agreement to defend each other on the
Crusades. Among the curious stipulations of this agree-
ment was one that only knights and the clergy were to be
allowed to play games for money, and the amount staked on
any one day was not to exceed twenty shillings.
Leaving Sicily, 2 whence Philip had sailed eleven days be-
fore, Richard proceeded to Cyprus, and as a punishment for
the ill treatment of pilgrims and the stranding of his vessels,
he wrested the kingdom in a three weeks' campaign from
Isaac Comnenus. The English at their occupation of Cyprus,
1878, might well have recalled Richard's conquest. On the
island, Richard's nuptials were consummated with Berengaria
of Navarre, whom he preferred to Philip's sister Alice, to
whom he had been betrothed. In June he reached Acre.
" For joy at his coming," says Baha-ed-din, the Arab his-
torian, " the Franks broke forth in rejoicing, and lit fires in
their camps all night through. The hosts of the Mussulmans
were filled with fear and dread." 3
1 Itinerary, III. 16.
2 Kichard's fleet, when he sailed from Messina, consisted of one hundred
and fifty large ships and fifty-three galleys.
8 The Itinerary, III. 2, says Richard's arrival was welcomed with trans-
ports of joy, shoutings, and blowing of trumpets. He was taken ashore as if
the desired of all nations had come, and the night was made so bright with
53. THE THIRD CRUSADE. 261
Acre, or Ptolemais, under Mount Carmel, had become the
metropolis of the Crusaders, as it was the key to the Holy
Land. Christendom had few capitals so gay in its fashions
and thronged with such diverse types of nationality. Mer-
chants were there from the great commercial marts of
Europe. The houses, placed among gardens, were rich with
painted glass. The Hospitallers and Templars had exten-
sive establishments.
Against Acre, Guy of Lusignan had been laying siege for
two years. Released by Saladin upon condition of renounc-
ing all claim to his crown and going beyond the seas, he had
secured easy absolution from the priest from this solemn
oath. Baldwin of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, bishop of
Salisbury, and the justiciar Ranulf of Glanvill had arrived
on the scene before Richard. " We found our army," wrote
the archbishop's chaplain, 1 " given up to shameful practices,
and yielding to ease and lust, rather than encouraging virtue.
The Lord is not in the camp. Neither chastity, solemnity,
faith, nor charity are there a state of things which, I call
God to witness, I would not have believed if I had not seen
it with my own eyes."
Saladin was watching the besiegers and protecting the
garrison. The horrors of the siege made it one of the mem-
orable sieges of the Middle Ages. 2 It was carried on from
wax torches and flaming lights "that it seemed to be usurped by the bright-
ness of the day, and the Turks thought the whole valley was on fire. " Richard
of Devizes, LXIII., says, " The besiegers received Richard with as much joy
as if it had been Christ who had come again."
1 The Itinerary, I., 66, says Baldwin was made sick unto death when he saw
" the army altogether dissolute and given up to drinking, women, and dice."
2 The loss before Acre was very heavy. The Itinerary gives a list of 6
archbishops, 12 bishops, 40 counts, and 500 knights who lost their lives.
IV. 6. De Hoveden also gives a formidable list, in which are included the
names of the dukes of Swabia, Flanders, and Burgundy, the archbishops of
Besan^on, Aries, Montreal, etc. Baldwin died Nov. 19, 1190. The Itin-
erary compares the siege of Acre to the siege of Troy, and says (I. 32) " it
would certainly obtain eternal fame as a city for which the whole world
contended."
262 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the sea as well as on the land. Greek fire was used with
great effect by the Turks. 1 The struggle was participated
in by women as well as the men. Some Crusaders apos-
tatized to get the means for prolonging life. 2 With the aid
of the huge machine Check Greek, and other engines con-
structed by Richard in Sicily, and by Philip, the city was made
to surrender, July, 1191. By the terms of the capitulation
the city's stores, two hundred thousand pieces of gold,
fifteen hundred prisoners, and the true cross were to pass
into the hands of the Crusaders.
The advance upon Jerusalem was delayed by rivalries
between the armies and their leaders. Richard's prowess,
large means, and personal popularity threw Philip into the
shade, and he was soon on his way back to France, leaving
the duke of Burgundy as leader of the French. The French
and Germans also quarrelled. 3 A fruitful source of friction
was the quarrel between Guy of Lusignan and Conrad of
Montferrat over the crown of Jerusalem, until the matter
was finally settled by Conrad's murder arid the recognition
of Guy as king of Cyprus, and Henry of Champagne, the
nephew of both Richard and Philip Augustus, as king of
Jerusalem.
A dark blot rests upon Richard's memory for the murder
in cold blood of twenty-seven hundred prisoners in the full
sight of Saladin's troops and as a punishment for the non-
1 The Itinerary and other documents make frequent reference to its
deadly use. Among the machines used on both sides were the petrarice,
which hurled stones, and mangonels used for hurling stones and other mis-
siles. Itinerary, III. 7, etc. One of the grappling machines was called a
"cat." The battering ram was also used, and the sow, a covering under
which the assailants made their approach to the walls. King Richard was an
expert in the use of the arbalest, or cross-bow.
2 The price of a loaf of bread rose from a penny to 40 shillings, and a horse-
load of corn was sold for 60 marks. De Hoveden, etc. Horse flesh was
greedily eaten, even to the intestines, which were sold for 10 sols. Even
grass was sought after to appease hunger. A vivid description of the pitiful
sufferings from famine is given in the Itinerary, I. 67-83.
8 Itinerary, I. 44.
53. THE THIRD CRUSADE. 263
payment of the ransom money. The massacre, a few days
before, of Christian captives, if it really " occurred, in part
explains but cannot condone the crime. 1
Jaffa and Ascalon became the next points of the Cru-
saders' attack, the operations being drawn out to a weari-
some length. Richard's feats of physical strength and
martial skill are vouched for by eye-witnesses, who speak
of him as cutting swathes through the enemy with his
sword and mowing them down "as the reapers mow down
the corn with their sickles." So mighty was his strength
that, when a Turkish admiral rode at him in full charge,
Richard severed his neck and one shoulder by a single blow.
But the king's dauntless though coarse courage was not
joined to the gifts of a leader fit for such a campaign. 2 His
savage war shout, " God and the Holy Sepulchre aid us,"
failed to unite the troops cloven by jealousies and to
1 This pretext is upon the sole authority of de Hoveden, an. 1191. He
says, however, that Saladin did not execute the Christian captives until
Richard had declined to withdraw his threat and to give more time for the
payment of the ransom money and the delivery of the true cross. Archer,
Hist, of the Crusades, p. 331, thinks that Baha-ed-din's account implies
Saladin's massacre ; but Lane-Poole, Life of Saladin, p. 307, is of the con-
trary opinion. The Itinerary, IV. 4, states that Richard's followers "leapt
forward to fulfil his commands, thankful to the divine grace for the permis-
sion to take such vengeance for the Christians whom the captives had slain
with bolts and arrows." It has nothing to say of a massacre by Saladin.
Lane-Poole, carried away by admiration for Saladin, takes occasion at this
point to say that " in the struggle of the Crusades the virtues of civilization,
magnanimity, toleration, real chivalry, and gentle culture were all on the
side of the Saracens." The duke of Burgundy was party to the massacre
of the Turkish captives.
2 Itinerary, VI. 23. Here is a description of one of Richard's frequent frays
as given in the Itinerary, VI. 4 : " Richard was conspicuous above all the rest
by his royal bearing. He was mounted on a tall charger and charged the
enemy singly. His ashen lance was shivered by his repeated blows ; but
instantly drawing his sword, he pressed upon the fugitive Turks and mowed
them down, sweeping away the hindmost and subduing the foremost. Thus
he thundered on, cutting and hewing. No kind of armor could resist his
blows, for the sdge of his sword cut open the heads from the top to the teeth.
Thus waving his sword to and fro, he scared away the routed Turks as a
wolf when he pursues the flying sheep."
264 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
establish military discipline. The camps were a scene of
confusion. Women left behind by Richard's order at Acre
came up to corrupt the army, while day after day " its mani-
fold sins, drunkenness, and luxury increased." Once and
perhaps twice Richard came so near the Holy City that he
might have looked down into it had he so chosen. 1 But, like
Philip Augustus, he never passed through its gates, and after
a signal victory at Joppa he closed his military achievements
in Palestine. A treaty, concluded with Saladin, assured to the
Christians for three years the coast from Tyre to Joppa, and
protection to pilgrims in Jerusalem and on their way to the
city. In October, 1192, the king, called back by the perfidy
of his brother John, set sail from Acre amid the laments of
those who remained behind, but not until he had sent word
to Saladin that he intended to return to renew the contest.
The exploits of the English king won even the admiration
of the Arabs, whose historian reports how he rode up and
down in front of the Saracen army defying them, and not
a man dared to touch him. Presents passed between him
and Saladin. 2 One who accompanied the Third Crusade
1 De Joinville, Life of St. iota's, an. 1253, says no doubt with truth that
Richard would have taken Jerusalem but for the envy and treachery of the
duke of Burgundy. He repeats the saying of Richard, which is almost too
good not to be true. When an officer said, " Sire, come here and I will show
you Jerusalem," the king throwing down his arms and looking up to heaven
exclaimed, " I pray thee, Lord God, that I may never look on the Holy City
until I can deliver it from thy enemies." The Itinerary has nothing to say
on the subject. Richard of Devizes, XC., states that Hubert, bishop of Salis-
bury, after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, urged the king to go in as a pilgrim,
but that "the worthy indignation of his noble mind would not consent to
receive from the courtesy of the Gentiles what he could not obtain by the
gift of God."
2 Baha-ed-din, as quoted by Lane-Poole, p. 354. De Hoveden speaks of
fruits, the Itinerary of horses. Later story ascribes to Saladin a yearly grant
of one thousand bezants of gold to the Knights of St. John at Acre. In order
to test the charity of the knights, the sultan had gone to the hospital in dis-
guise and found the reports of their merciful treatment well founded. Of
this and of the story of his knighthood at the hands of Humphrey of Toron,
and vouched for by the contemporary Itinerary of King Richard, the Arab
authorities know nothing. See Lane-Poole, Life of Saladin, 387 sqq.
53. THti THIRD CRUSADE. 265
ascribes to him the valor of Hector, the magnanimity of
Achilles, the prudence of Odysseus, the eloquence of Nestor,
and equality with Alexander. French writers of the thir-
teenth century tell how Saracen mothers, long after Richard
had returned to England, used to frighten their children
into obedience or silence by the spell of his name, so great
was the dread he had inspired. Destitute of the pious
traits of Godfrey and Louis IX., Richard nevertheless
stands, by his valor, muscular strength, and generous mind,
in the very front rank of conspicuous Crusaders.
On his way back to England he was seized by Leopold,
duke of Austria, whose enmity he had incurred before
Joppa. The duke turned his captive over to the emperor,
Henry VI., who had a grudge to settle growing out of Sicil-
ian matters. Richard was released only on the humiliating
terms of paying an enormous ransom and consenting to hold
his kingdom as a fief of the empire. Saladin died March 4,
1193, by far the most famous of the foes of the Crusaders.
Christendom has joined with Arab writers in praise of his
chivalric courage, culture, and magnanimity. 1 What could
be more courteous than his granting the request of Hubert
Walter for the station of two Latin priests in the three
churches of the Holy Sepulchre, Nazareth, and Bethlehem? 2
The recapture of Acre and the grant of protection to the
pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem were paltry achievements
1 A western legend given by Vincent de Beauvais relates that as Saladin
was dying he called to him his standard-bearer and bade him carry through
the streets of Damascus the banner of his death as he had carried the banner
of his wars ; namely, a rag attached to a lance, and cry out, " Lo, at his death,
the king of the East can take nothing with him but this cloth only."
2 The Itinerary gives a story of Saladin and the notorious miracle of the
holy fire until recently shown in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It may
well be true. When Saladin, on one occasion, saw the holy flame descend
and light a lamp, he ordered the lamp blown out to show it was a fraud. But
it was immediately rekindled as if by a miracle. Extinguished a second and
a third time, it was again and again rekindled. " Oh, what use is it to resist
the invisible Power ! " exclaims the author of the Itinerary, V. 16.
266 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
in view of the loss of life, the long months spent in making
ready for the Crusade, the expenditure of money, and the
combination of the great nations of Europe. In this case, as
in the other Crusades, it was not so much the Saracens, or
even the splendid abilities of Saladin, which defeated the
Crusaders, but their feuds among themselves. Never again
did so large an army from the West contend for the cross
on Syrian soil.
54. The Children s Crusades.
" The rich East blooms fragrant before us ;
All Fairy-land beckons us forth,
We must follow the crane in her flight o'er the main,
From the posts and the moors of the North."
CHARLES KINGSLEY, The Saint's Tragedy.
LITERATURE. For the sources, see WILKEN: Gesch. der Kreuzzuge, VI.
71_83. DES ESSARDS : La Croisade des enfants, Paris, 1875. ROHRICHT,
Die Kinderkreuzzuge, in Sybel, Hist. Zeitschnft, vol. XXXVI., 1876.
G. Z. GRAY: The Children's Crnsade, N.Y., 1872, new ed. 1896.
ISABEL S. STONE: The Little Crusaders, N.Y., 1901. HURTER: In-
nocent III., II. 482-489.
The most tragic of the Crusader tragedies were the cru-
sades of the children. They were a slaughter of the innocents
on a large scale, and belong to those mysteries of Providence
which the future only will solve.
The crusading epidemic broke out among the children
of France and Germany in 1212. Begotten in enthusiasm,
which was fanned by priestly zeal, the movement ended in
pitiful disaster.
The French expedition was led by Stephen, a shepherd lad
of twelve, living at Cloyes near Chartres. He had a vision,
so the rumor went, in which Christ appeared to him as a pil-
grim and made an appeal for the rescue of the holy places.
Journeying to St. Denis, the boy retailed the account of
what he had seen. Other children gathered around him.
The enthusiasm spread from Brittany to the Pyrenees. In
54. THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADES. 267
vain did the king of France attempt to check the movement.
The army increased to thirty thousand, girls as well as boys,
adults as well as children. 1 Questioned as to where they
were going, they replied, " We go to God, and seek for the
holy cross beyond the sea." They reached Marseilles, but
the waves did not part and let them go through dryshod as
they expected. 2
The centres of the movement in Germany were Nicholas, a
child of ten, and a second leader whose name has been lost.
Cologne was the rallying point. Children of noble fami-
lies enlisted. Along with the boys and girls went men and
women, good and bad.
The army under the anonymous leader passed through
Eastern Switzerland and across the Alps to Brindisi, whence
some of the children sailed, never to be heard from again.
The army of Nicholas reached Genoa in August, 1212. The
children sang songs on the way, and with them has been
wrongly associated the tender old German hymn :
' ' Fairest Lord Jesus,
Ruler of all nature,
O Thou of man and God, the son,
Thee will I cherish,
Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown."
The numbers had been reduced by hardship, death, and
moral shipwreck from twenty to seven thousand. At Genoa
the waters were as pitiless as they were at Marseilles. Some of
the children remained in the city and became, it is said, the
ancestors of distinguished families. 3 The rest marched on
1 Hurter regards the numbers handed down as greatly exaggerated.
2 An epigram, dwelling upon the folly of the movement, ran :
" Ad mare stultorum
Tendebat iter puerorum."
" To the sea of the fools
Led the path of the children."
8 Wilken for this assertion quotes the History of the Genoese Senate and
People, by Peter Bizari, Antwerp, 1679. One of the families was the house
of the Vivaldi.
268 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
through Italy to Brindisi, where the bishop of Brindisi re-
fused to let them proceed farther. An uncertain report
declares Innocent III. declined to grant their appeal to be
released from their vow.
The fate of the French children was, if possible, still more
pitiable. At Marseilles they fell a prey to two slave dealers,
who for "the sake of God and without price" offered to
convey them across the Mediterranean. Their names are
preserved, Hugo Ferreus and William Porous. Seven
vessels set sail. Two were shipwrecked on the little island
of San Pietro off the northwestern coast of Sardinia. The
rest reached the African shore, where the children were sold
into slavery.
The shipwreck of the little Crusaders was commemorated
by Gregory IX., in the chapel of the New Innocents, ecclesia
novorum innocentium, which he built on San Pietro. Inno-
cent III. in summoning Europe to a new crusade included in
his appeal the spectacle of their sacrifice. " They put us to
shame. While they rush to the recovery of the Holy Land,
we sleep." l Impossible as such a movement might seem
in our calculating age, it is attested by too many good
witnesses to permit its being relegated to the realm of
legend, 2 and the trials and death of the children of the
thirteenth century will continue to be associated with the
slaughter of the children of Bethlehem at the hand of Herod.
55. The Fourth Crusade and the Capture of
Constantinople. 1200-1204.
LITERATURE. NICETAS ACOMINATUS, Byzantine patrician and grand logo
thete. During the Crusaders' investment of Constantinople his palace
was burnt, and with his wife and daughter he fled to Niceea : Byzan-
1 See Wilken, VI. 83.
2 So Wilken, Sie ist durch die Zeugnisse glaubwurdiger Geschichtschreiber
so fest begrundet, dass ihre Wahrheit nicht bezweifelt icerden kann, p. 72.
Rohricht, Hist. Zeitschrift, XXXVI. 5, also insists upon the historical
genuineness of the reports.
55. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 269
tina Historia, 1118-1206, in Eecueil des historiens des Croisades, histor.
Grecs, vol. L, and in Migne, Patr. Gr., vols. 139, 140. GEOFFROI DE
VILLEHARDOUIN, a prominent participant in the Crusade, d. 1213? : Hist,
de la Conquete de Constantinople avec la continuation de Henri de Va-
lenciennes, earliest ed., Paris, 1585, ed. by Du CANGB, Paris, 1857,
and N. DE WAILLY, Paris, 1871, 3d ed. 1882, and E. BOUCHET, with
new trans., Paris, 1891. For other editions, see POTTHAST, II. 1094.
Engl. trans, by T. SMITH, London, 1829. ROBERT DE CLARY, d. after
1216, a participant in the Crusade : La Prise de Constant., 1st ed.
by P. RIANT, Paris, 1868. GUNTHERUS ALEMANNUS, a Cistercian, d.
1220 ? : Historia Constantinopolitana, in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. 212,
221-255, and ed. by RIANT, Geneva, 1875, and repeated in his Exuviae,
Sacrce, a valuable description, based upon the relation of his abbot,
Martin, a participant in the Crusade. Innocent III. Letters, in Migne,
vols. 214-217. CHARLES HOPF : Chroniques Grceco-Romanes inedites
ou pen connues, Berlin, 1873. Contains DE CLARY, the Devastatio
Constantinopolitana, etc. C. KLIMKE : D. Quellen zur Gesch. des 4ten
Kreuzzuges, Breslau, 1875. Short extracts from VILLEHARDOUIN and
DE CLARY are given in Trans, and Reprints, published by University
of Pennsylvania, vol. III., Philadelphia, 1896.
PAUL DE RIANT : Exuviae sacrce Constantinopolitance, Geneva, 1877-1878,
2 vols. TESSIER: Quatrieme Croisade, la diversion sur Zara et Con-
stantinople, Paris, 1884. E. PEARS : The Fall of Constantinople, being
the Story of the Fourth Crusade, N.Y., 1886. W. NORDAU : Der vierte
Kreuzzug, 1898. A. CHARASSON : Un cure plebeien au XII* Siecle,
Foulques, Predicateur de la IV" Croisade, Paris, 1905. GIBBON, LX.,
LXI. HURTER : Life of Innocent III., vol. I. RANKE : Weltgesch.,
VIII. 280-298. C. W. C. OMAN: The Byzantine Empire, 1895, pp.
274-306. F. C. HODGSON : The Early History of Venice, from the
Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople, 1204, 1901. An ap-
pendix contains an excursus on the historical sources of the Fourth
Crusade.
It would be difficult to find in history a more notable
diversion of a scheme from its original purpose than the
Fourth Crusade. Inaugurated to strike a blow at the power
which held the Holy Land, it destroyed the Christian city
of Zara and overthrew the Greek empire of Constantinople.
Its goals were determined by the blind doge, Henry Dandolo
of Venice. As the First Crusade resulted in the establish-
ment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, so the Fourth
Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Latin empire
of Constantinople.
Innocent III., on ascending the papal throne, threw
270 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
himself with all the energy of his nature into the effort of
reviving the crusading spirit. He issued letter after letter 1
to the sovereigns of England, France, Hungary, and Sicily. 2
He also wrote to the Byzantine emperor, urging him to resist
the Saracens and subject the Greek church to its mother,
Rome. 3 The failure of preceding crusades was ascribed to
the sins of the Crusaders. But for them, one Christian
would have chased a thousand, or even ten thousand, and
the enemies of the cross would have disappeared like smoke
or melting wax.
For the expense of a new expedition the pope set apart
one-tenth of his revenue, and he directed the cardinals to do
the same. The clergy and all Christians were urged to give
liberally. The goods and lands of Crusaders were to enjoy
the special protection of the Holy See. Princes were in-
structed to compel Jewish money-lenders to remit interest
due from those going on the expedition. Legates were de-
spatched to Genoa, Pisa, and Venice to stir up zeal for the
project ; and these cities were forbidden to furnish to the
Saracens supplies of arms, food, or other material. A cardi-
nal was appointed to make special prayers for the Crusade,
as Moses had prayed for Israel against the Amalekites.
The Cistercian abbot, Martin, preached in Germany; 4 and
the eloquent Fulke of Neuilly, receiving his commission
from Innocent III., 6 distinguished himself by winning thou-
sands of recruits from the nobility and populace of Burgundy,
Flanders, and Normandy. Under his preaching, in 1199,
Count Thibaut of Champagne, 6 Louis of Blois, Baldwin of
1 See the ample description of Hurter, I. pp. 221-230, etc.
2 Epp. of Innocent, I. 353, 354, etc., Migne, 214, 329 sqq.
8 Ep. I. 353, Migne, 214, 325 sqq.
4 Guntherus, Migne, 212, 225.
6 A French translation of Innocent's letter commissioning Fulke to preach
the Crusade is given by Charasson, p. 99.
6 Thibaut, then twenty-two, and Louis, then twenty-seven, were nephews
of the king of France, Villehardouin, 3 ; Wailly's ed., p. 5. Thibaut died
before the Crusaders started from France.
55. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 271
Flanders, and Simon de Montfort took the vow. So also
did Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne, who accompanied
the expedition, and became its spicy historian. As in the
case of the First Crusade, the armament was led by nobles,
and not by sovereigns.
The leaders, meeting at Soissons in 1200, sent a deputa-
tion to Venice to secure transportation for the army. Egypt
was chosen as the point of landing and attack, it being held
that a movement would be most apt to be successful which
cut off the Saracens' supplies at their base in the land of the
Nile. 1
The Venetian Grand Council agreed to provide ships for
9000 esquires, 4500 knights, 20,000 foot-soldiers, and 4500
horses, and to furnish provisions for nine months for the
sum of 85,000 marks, or about 1,000,000 in present money. 2
The agreement stated the design of the enterprise to be " the
deliverance of the Holy Land." The doge, Henry Dandolo,
who had already passed the limit of ninety years, was in
spite of his age and blindness full of vigor and decision. 3
The crusading forces mustered at Venice. The fleet was
ready, but the Crusaders were short of funds, and able to pay
only 50,000 marks of the stipulated sum. Dandolo took ad-
vantage of these straits to advance the selfish aims of Venice,
and proposed, as an equivalent for the balance of the passage
1 Villehardouin, who was one of the six members of the commission
(Wailly's ed., p. 11), says, "The Turks could be more easily destroyed
there than in any other country." Egypt was often called by the Crusaders
"the land of Babylon."
2 Wailly's edition of Villehardouin, p. 452, makes the sum 4,420,000
francs. It reckons a mark as the equivalent of 62 francs. The Grand
Council added fifty armed galleys "for tlie love of God," on condition
that during the continuance of the alliance Venice should have one-half the
spoils of conquest.
3 Villehardouin describes him as a man de bien grand cwur. He died at
ninety-seven, in 1205, and was buried in the Church of St. Sophia. In his
reply to the deputation, the doge recognized the high birth of the Crusaders
in the words, "we perceive that the lords are in the highest rank of those
who do not wear a crown " (Villehardouin, 16 ; Wailly's ed., 13).
272 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
money, that the Crusaders aid in capturing Zara. 1 The
offer was accepted. Zara, the capital of Dalmatia and the
chief market on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, belonged
to the Christian king of Hungary. Its predatory attacks
upon Venetian vessels formed the pretext for its reduction. 2
The threat of papal excommunication, presented by the
papal legate, did not check the preparations ; and after the
solemn celebration of the mass, the fleet set sail, with
Dandolo as virtual commander.
The departure of four hundred and eighty gayly rigged
vessels is described by several eye-witnesses 3 and constitutes
one of the most important scenes in the naval enterprise of
the queen of the Adriatic.
Zara was taken Nov. 24, 1202, given over to plunder,
and razed to the ground. No wonder Innocent wrote that
Satan had been the instigator of this destructive raid upon
a Christian people and excommunicated the participants in
it. 4
Organized to dislodge the Saracens and reduced to a fili-
bustering expedition, the Crusade was now to be directed
against Constantinople. The rightful emperor, Isaac Ange-
lus, was languishing in prison with his eyes put out by the
hand of the usurper, Alexius III., his own brother. Isaac's
son, Alexius, had visited Innocent III. and Philip of Swabia,
1 Villehardouin, 56 sqq. ; Wailly's ed., 33 sq.
2 Villehardonin mentions only the proposition to go against Zara. Robert
of Clary and other writers state that Dandolo made a previous proposition that
the fleet should proceed to Mohammedan territory and that the first booty
should be used to pay the Crusaders' debt. He then substituted the propo-
sition to go against Zara, and the Crusaders were forced by their circum-
stances to accept. There is some ground for the charge that in May, 1202,
Dandolo made a secret treaty with the sultan of Egypt. See Pears, 271 sqq.
8 Villehardouin and Robert de Clary. Clary's account is very vivacious
and much the more detailed of the two.
*A deputation afterwards visited Innocent and secured his absolution,
Villehardouin, 107; Wailly's ed., 61. The news of the death of Fulke of
Neuilly reached the Crusaders on the eve of their breaking away from
Venice. Villehardouin, 73; Wailly's ed., 43, calls him le bon, le saint homme.
55. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 273
appealing for aid in behalf of his father. Philip, claimant
to the German throne, had married the prince's sister. Greek
messengers appeared at Zara to appeal to Dandolo and the
Crusaders to take up Isaac's cause. The proposal suited
the ambition of Venice, which could not have wished for a
more favorable opportunity to confirm her superiority over
the Pisans and Genoans, which had been threatened, if not
impaired, on the Bosphorus.
As a compensation, Alexius made the tempting offer of
200,000 marks silver, the maintenance for a year of an
army of 10,000 against the Mohammedans, and of 500
knights for life as a guard for the Holy Land, and the sub-
mission of the Eastern Church to the pope. The doge fell
in at once with the proposition, but it was met by strong
voices of dissent in the ranks of the Crusaders. Innocent's
threat of continued excommunication, if the expedition was
turned against Constantinople, was ignored. A few of the
Crusaders, like Simon de Montfort, refused to be used for
private ends and withdrew from the expedition. 1
Before reaching Corfu, the fleet was joined by Alexius in
person. By the end of June, 1203, it had passed through the
Dardanelles and was anchored opposite the Golden Horn.
After prayers and exhortations by the bishops and clergy,
the Galata tower was taken. Alexius III. fled, and Isaac
was restored to the throne.
The agreements made with the Venetians, the Greeks
found it impossible to fulfil. Confusion reigned among
them. Two disastrous conflagrations devoured large por-
tions of the city. One started in a mosque which evoked
1 Villehardouin, 109. Pears, p. 268, speaks pathetically of the Crusaders
as " about to commit the great crime of the Middle Ages, by the destruction
of the citadel against which the hitherto irresistible wave of Moslem invasion
had beaten and been broken." Not praiseworthy, it is true, was the
motive of the Crusaders, yet there is no occasion for bemoaning the fate of
Constantinople and the Greeks. The conquest of the Latins prolonged
the successful resistance to the Turks.
T
274 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the wrath of the Crusaders. 1 The discontent with the hard
terms of the agreement and the presence of the Occidentals
gave Alexius Dukas, surnamed Murzuphlos from his shaggy
eyebrows, opportunity to dethrone Isaac and his son and to
seize the reins of government. The prince was put to death,
and Isaac soon followed him to the grave.
The confusion within the palace and the failure to pay the
promised reward were a sufficient excuse for the invaders to
assault the city, which fell April 12, 1204. 2 Unrestrained
pillage and riot followed. Even the occupants of convents
were not exempted from the orgies of unbridled lust.
Churches and altars were despoiled as well as palaces.
Chalices were turned into drinking cups. A prostitute
placed in the chair of the patriarchs in St. Sophia, sang
ribald songs and danced for the amusement of the soldiery. 3
Innocent III., writing of the conquest of the city, says :
" You have spared nothing that is sacred, neither age nor sex. You
have given yourselves up to prostitution, to adultery, and to debauchery
in the face of all the world. You have glutted your guilty passions, not
only on married women, but upon women and virgins dedicated to the
Saviour. You have not been content with the imperial treasures and
the goods of rich and poor, but you have seized even the wealth of the
Church and what belongs to it. You have pillaged the silver tables of
the altars, you have broken into the sacristies and stolen the vessels."*
To the revolt at these orgies succeeding ages have added re-
gret for the irreparable loss which literature and art suffered
1 Arabs were allowed to live in the city and granted the privileges of their
religious rites. Gibbon with characteristic irony says, " The Flemish pilgrims
were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or a synagogue in which one God
was worshipped without a partner or a son."
2 Villehardouin, 233, Wailly's ed. p. 137, pronounces the capture of Con-
stantinople one of the most difficult feats ever undertaken, une des plus
redoutables choses afaire qui jamais fut. A city of such strong fortifications
the Franks had not seen before.
8 Hurter (I. p. 685), comparing the conquest of Constantinople with the
capture of Jerusalem, exalts the piety of Godfrey and the first Crusaders
over against the Venetians and their greed for booty. He forgot the awful
massacre in Jerusalem.
* Peg., VIII. Ep., 133.
55. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 275
in the wild and protracted sack. For the first time in eight
hundred years its accumulated treasures were exposed to
the ravages of the spoiler, who broke up the altars in its
churches, as in St. Sophia, or melted priceless pieces of bronze
statuary on the streets and highways. 1
Constantinople proved to be the richest of sacred store-
houses, full of relics, which excited the cupidity and satis-
fied the superstition of the Crusaders, who found nothing
inconsistent in joining devout worship and the violation of
the eighth commandment in getting possession of the objects
of worship. 2 With a credulity which seems to have asked
no questions, skulls and bones of saints, pieces of wearing
apparel, and other sacred objects were easily discovered and
eagerly sent to Western Europe, from the stone on which
Jacob slept and Moses' rod which was turned into a serpent,
to the true cross and fragments of Mary's garments. 3 What
California was to the world's supply of gold in 1849 and the
mines of the Transvaal have been to its supply of diamonds
that the capture of Constantinople was to the supply of
relics for Latin Christendom. Towns and cities welcomed
these relics, and convents were made famous by their posses-
sion. In 1205 bishop Nivelon of Soissons sent to Soissons
the head of St. Stephen, the finger that Thomas thrust into
the Saviour's side, a thorn from the crown of thorns, a portion
of the sleeveless shirt of the Virgin Mary and her girdle, a
portion of the towel with which the Lord girded himself at
the Last Supper, one of John the Baptist's arms, and other
antiquities scarcely less venerable. The city of Halberstadt
and its bishop, Konrad, were fortunate enough to secure
1 Nicetas gives a list of these losses. See Gibbon, LX., and Hurter.
2 Villehardouin, 191 ; Wailly's ed., Ill, says des reliques il n'en faut
point parler, car en ce jour il y en avait autant dans la ville que dans le reste
du monde. The account of Guntherus, Migne, 212, 253 sqq., is the most elabo-
rate. His informant the Abbot Martin, was an insatiable relic hunter.
8 See Riant ; Hurter, I. 694-702 ; Pears, 365-370. A volume would scarce
contain the history, real and legendary, of these objects of veneration.
276 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
some of the blood shed on the cross, parts of the sponge and
reed and the purple robe, the head of James the Just, and
many other trophies. Sens received the crown of thorns.
A tear of Christ was conveyed to Seligencourt and led to a
change of its name to the Convent of the Sacred Tear. 1
Amiens received John the Baptist's head ; St. Albans, Eng-
land, two of St. Margaret's fingers. The true cross was
divided by the grace of the bishops among the barons. A
piece was sent by Baldwin to Innocent III.
Perhaps no sacred relics were received with more outward
demonstrations of honor than the true crown of thorns, which
Baldwin II. transferred to the king of France for ten thousand
marks of silver. 2 It was given free passage by the emperor
Frederick II. and was carried through Paris by the French
king barefoot and in his shirt. A part of the true cross and
the swaddling clothes of Bethlehem were additional acquisi-
tions of Paris.
The Latin Empire of Constantinople, which followed the
capture of the city, lasted from 1204 to 1261. Six electors
representing the Venetians and six representing the Crusa-
ders met in council and elected Baldwin of Flanders,
emperor. 3 He was crowned by the papal legate in St.
1 A curious account is given by Dalmatius of Sergy, of his discovery of
the head of St. Clement in answer to prayer, and the deception he practised
in making away with it. The relic went to Cluny and was greatly prized.
See Hurter. The successful stealth of Abbot Martin is told at length by the
German Guntherus, Migne, 212, 251 sq.
2 Matthew Paris, in his account, says, "It was precious beyond gold or
topaz, and to the credit of the French kingdom, and indeed, of all the Latins,
it was solemnly and devoutly received in grand procession amidst the ring-
ing of bells and the devout prayers of the faithful followers of Christ, and
was placed in the king's chapel in Paris." Luard's ed., IV. 75; Giles's
trans., I. 311.
8 The mode of election was fixed before the capture of the city, Ville-
hardouin, 234, 256-261 ; Wailly's ed., 137, 152 sqq. The election took place
in a chamber of the palace. The leader of the French forces, Boniface of
Montferrat, married the widow of the emperor Isaac and was made king of
Salonica. Innocent III. (VIIL 134, Migne, 215, 714) congratulated Isaac's
widow upon her conversion to the Latin Church,
55. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 277
Sophia and at once set about to introduce Latin priests and
subdue the Greek Church to the pope.
The attitude of Innocent III. to this remarkable transac-
tion of Christian soldiery exhibited at once his righteous
indignation and his politic acquiescence in the new responsi-
bility thrust upon the Apostolic see. 1 He appointed the
Venetian, Thomas Morosini, archbishop; and the Latin patri-
archate, established with him, has been perpetuated to this
day, and is an almost unbearable offence to the Greeks. 2 If
Innocent had followed Baldwin's suggestions, he would have
convoked an oecumenical council in Constantinople.
The last of the Latin emperors, Baldwin III., 1237-1261,
spent most of his time in Western Europe making vain ap-
peals for money. After his dethronement, in 1261, by Michael
Palseologus he presents a pitiable spectacle, seeking to gain
the ear of princes and ecclesiastics. For two hundred years
more the Greeks had an uncertain tenure on the Bosphorus.
The loss of Constantinople was bound to come sooner or later
in the absence of a moral and muscular revival of the Greek
people. The Latin conquest of the city was a romantic epi-
sode, and not a stage in the progress of civilization in the
East ; nor did it hasten the coming of the new era of letters
in Western Europe. It widened the schism of the Greek
and the Latin churches. The only party to reap substantial
gain from the Fourth Crusade was the Venetians. 3
1 He wrote to Baldwin that, while it was desirable the Eastern Church
should be subdued, he was more concerned that the Holy Land should be
rescued. He urged him and the Venetians to eat the bread of repentance
that they might fight the battle of the Lord with a pure heart.
2 The Greek patriarch had left the city reduced to a state of apostolic pov-
erty, of which Gibbon, LXI, says that "had it been voluntary it might per-
haps have been meritorious."
8 Pears concludes his work, The Fall of Constantinople, by the false judg-
ment that the effects of the Fourth Crusade were altogether disastrous for
civilization. He surmises that, but for it, the city would never have fallen
into the hands of the Turks, and the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea
would now be surrounded by "prosperous and civilized nations," pp. 412
sqq. There was no movement of progress in the Byzantine empire for the
Crusaders to check.
278 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
56. Frederick II. and the Fifth Crusade. 1229.
ROHRICHT: Studien zur Gesch. d. V. Kreuzzuges, Innsbruck, 1891.
HAUCK, IV. 752-764, and the lit., 42, 49.
Innocent III.'s ardor for the reconquest of Palestine con-
tinued unabated till his death. A fresh crusade constituted
one of the main objects for which the Fourth Lateran Coun-
cil was called. The date set for it to start was June 1,
1217, and it is known as the Fifth Crusade. The pope
promised 30,000 from his private funds, and a ship to
convey the Crusaders going from Rome and its vicinity.
The cardinals joined him in promising to contribute one-
tenth of their incomes and the clergy were called upon
to set apart one-twentieth of their revenues for three
years for the holy cause. To the penitent contributing
money to the crusade, as well as to those participating in it,
full indulgence for sins was offered. 1 A brief, forbidding
the sale of all merchandise and munitions of war to the
Saracens for four years, was ordered read every Sabbath
and fast day in Christian ports.
Innocent died without seeing the expedition start. For
his successor Honorius III., its promotion was a ruling pas-
sion, but he also died without seeing it realized.
In 1217 Andreas of Hungary led an army to Syria, but
accomplished nothing. In 1219 William of Holland with
his Germans, Norwegians, and Danes helped John of
Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, to take Damietta. This
city, situated on one of the mouths of the Nile, was a
place of prime commercial importance and regarded as the
key of Egypt. Egypt had come to be regarded as the
proper way of military approach to Palestine. Malik-al-
Kameel, who in 1218 had succeeded to power in Egypt,
offered the Christians Jerusalem and all Palestine, except
1 Plenum tuorum peccaminum veniam indulgemus. See Mansi, XXII.
1067 ; Mirbt, Quellen, 126, Gottlob, 137 sq.
56. FREDERICK II. AND THE FIFTH CRUSADE. 279
Kerak, together with the release of all Christian prisoners,
on condition of the surrender of Damietta. It was a grand
opportunity of securing the objects for which the Cru-
saders had been fighting, but, elated by victory and look-
ing for help from the emperor, Frederick II., they rejected
the offer. In 1221 Damietta fell back into the hands of
Mohammedans. J
The Fifth Crusade reached its results by diplomacy more
than by the sword. Its leader, Frederick II., had little of
the crusading spirit, and certainly the experiences of his
ancestors Konrad and Barbarossa were not adapted to
encourage him. His vow, made at his coronation in Aachen
and repeated at his coronation in Rome, seems to have had
little binding force for him. His marriage with lolanthe,
granddaughter of Conrad of Montferrat and heiress of
the crown of Jerusalem, did not accelerate his preparations
to which he was urged by Honorius III. In 1227 he
sailed from Brindisi; but, as has already been said, he re-
turned to port after three days on account of sickness
among his men. 2
At last the emperor set forth with forty galleys and six
hundred knights, and arrived in Acre, Sept. 7, 1228. The
sultans of Egypt and Damascus were at the time in bitter
conflict. Taking advantage of the situation, Frederick
concluded with Malik-al-Kameel a treaty which was to re-
main in force ten years and delivered up to the Christians
1 For the text of Frederick's summons to his crusade of 1221, see Mathews,
Select Med. Documents, 120 sq.
2 Funk, in Wetzer-Welte, VII. 1166, says that in view of contemporary
testimony, Frederick's sickness cannot be doubted. Roger Wendover,
an. 1227, however, doubted it. Funk is wrong in saying that it was not
till 1239 that Gregory, aggravated by the emperor's conduct, impeached
Frederick's plea of sickness. In his sentence of excommunication of 1228,
Gregory asserted that Frederick " was enticed away to the usual pleasures of
his kingdom and made a frivolous pretext of bodily infirmity." In 1235,
at a time when emperor and pope were reconciled, Gregory spoke of
Jerusalem " as being restored to our well-beloved son in Christ, Frederick."
280 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Jerusalem with the exception of the mosque of Omar and
the Temple area, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the pilgrim
route from Acre to Jerusalem. 1 On March 19, 1229, the
emperor crowned himself with his own hand in the church
of the Holy Sepulchre. The same day the archbishop of
Csesarea pronounced, in the name of the patriarch of
Jerusalem, the interdict over the city. 2
Recalled probably by the dangers threatening his kingdom,
Frederick arrived in Europe in the spring of 1229, but only
to find himself for the fourth time put under the ban by his
implacable antagonist, Gregory. In 1235 Gregory was again
appealing to Christendom to make preparations for another
expedition, and in his letter of 1239, excommunicating the
emperor for the fifth time, he pronounced him the chief im-
pediment in the way of a crusade. 3
It was certainly a singular spectacle that the Holy City
should be gained by a diplomatic compact and not by hard-
ship, heroic struggle, and the intervention of miracle, whether
real or imagined. It was still more singular that the sacred
goal should be reached without the aid of ecclesiastical sanc-
tion, nay in the face of solemn papal denunciation.
Frederick II. has been called by Freeman an unwilling Cru-
sader and the conquest of Jerusalem a grotesque episode in
his life. 4 Frederick certainly had no compunction about
living on terms of amity with Mohammedans in his kingdom,
and he probably saw no wisdom in endangering his relations
with them at home by unsheathing the sword against them
abroad. 6 Much to the disgust of Gregory IX. he visited the
mosque of Omar in Jerusalem without making any protest
1 See Rohricht, Regesta regni Hier., 262, and Br&iolles, III. 86-90.
2 Gerpldus was patriarch of Jerusalem and notified Gregory IX. of Fred-
erick's " fraudulent pact with the Egyptian sultan." Rohricht, 263.
8 In 1240 a petition signed by German bishops and princes and addressed
to Gregory urged him to cease from strife with Frederick as it interfered
with a crusade. Bre"holles, V. 985.
* Hist. Essays, I. 283-313. 6 Bre'holles, V. 327-340.
57. ST. LOUIS AND THE LAST CRUSADES. 281
against its ritual. Perhaps, with his freedom of thought, he
did not regard the possession of Palestine after all as of much
value. In any case, Frederick's religion whatever he had
of religion was not of a kind to flame forth in enthusiasm
for a pious scheme in which sentiment formed a prevailing
element.
Gregory's continued appeals in 1235 and the succeeding
years called for some minor expeditions, one of them led by
Richard of Cornwall, afterwards German emperor-elect. The
condition of the Christians in Palestine grew more and more
deplorable and, in a battle with the Chorasmians, Oct. 14,
1244, they met with a disastrous defeat, and thenceforth
Jerusalem was closed to them.
57. St. Louis and the Last Crusades. 1248, 1270.
LITERATURE. JEHAN DE JOINVILLE, d. 1319, the next great historical writer
in old French after Villehardouin, companion of St. Louis on his first
Crusade : Hist, de St. Louis, 1st ed. Poitiers, 1547 ; by Du Cange, 1668 ; by
Michaud in Memoires a Vhist. de France, Paris, 1857, I. 161-329, and
by de Wailly, Paris, 1868. For other edd. see Potthast, Bibl., I. 679-681.
Engl. trans., M. TH. JOIINES, Haford, 1807, included in Chronicles
of the Crusades, Bonn's Libr. 340-556, and J. HDTTON, London, 1868.
TILLEMONT : Vie de St. Louis, publ. for the first time, Paris, 1847-1851, 6
vols. SCHOLTEN : Gescli. Ludwigs des Heiligen, ed. by Junkemann and
Janssen, 2 vols. Minister, 1850-1855. GUIZOT : St. Louis and Calvin,
Paris, 1868. MRS. BRAY: Good St. Louis and his Times, London,
1870. WALLON : St. Louis et son Temps, 3d ed. Tours, 1879. ST.
PATHUS : Vie de St. Louis, publie"e par F. Delaborde, Paris, 1899. F.
PERRY: St. Louis, Most Christian King, London, 1901. LANE-POOLE:
Hist, of Egypt in the M. A., N.Y., 1901.
One more great Crusader, one in whom genuine piety was
a leading trait, was yet to set his face towards the East and,
by the abrupt termination of his career through sickness,
to furnish one of the most memorable scenes in the long
drama of the Crusades. The Sixth and Seventh Crusades
owe their origin to the devotion of Louis IX., king of France,
usually known as St. Louis. Louis combined the piety of
the monk with the chivalry of the knight, and stands in
282 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the front rank of Christian sovereigns of all times. 1 His
religious zeal showed itself not only in devotion to the con-
fessional and the mass, but in steadfast refusal, in the face
of threatened torture, to deviate from his faith and in patient
resignation under the most trying adversity. A considerate
regard for the poor and the just treatment of his subjects
were among his traits. He washed the feet of beggars and,
when a Dominican warned him against carrying his humil-
ity too far, he replied, " If I spent twice as much time in
gaming and at the chase as in such services, no man would
rise up to find fault with me."
On one occasion, when he asked Joinville if he were called
upon to choose between being a leper and committing mortal
sin, which his choice would be, the seneschal replied, " he
would rather commit thirty mortal sins than be a leper."
The next day the king said to him, " How could you say what
you did ? There is no leper so hideous as he who is in a state
of mortal sin. The leprosy of the body will pass away at
death, but the leprosy of the soul may cling to it forever."
The sack of Jerusalem by the Chorasmians, 2 who were
being pushed on from behind by the Mongols, was fol-
lowed by the fall of Gaza and Ascalon. It was just one hun-
dred years since the news of the fall of Edessa had stirred
Europe, but the temper of men's minds was no longer the
same. The news of disasters in Palestine was a familiar
thing. There was now no Bernard to arouse the conscience
and give directions to the feelings of princes and people.
The Council of Lyons in 1245 had for one of its four objects
the relief of the holy places. A summons was sent forth
1 "Piety was his ruling passion." Guizot, p. 117. De Joinville fre-
quently calls him " the good king " and Matthew Paris " that most Christian
king."
2 See the account in a letter from the prelates of the Holy Land in
Matthew Paris, an. 1244. The invaders were called Tartars by Robert,
patriarch of Jerusalem, in his letter to Innocent IV. Rohricht, Reg. regni
ITier., p. 299.
57. ST. LOUIS AND THE LAST CRUSADES. 283
by pope and council for a new expedition, and the usual
gracious offers were made to those who should participate in
the movement. St. Louis responded. During a sickness in
1245 and at the moment when the attendants were about to
put a cloth on his face thinking he was dead, the king had
the cross bound upon his breast.
On June 12, 1248, Louis received at St. Denis from the
hand of the papal legate the oriflamme, and the pilgrim's
wallet and staff. He was joined by his three brothers,
Robert, count of Artois, Alphonso, count of Poitiers, and
Charles of Anjou. Among others to accompany the king
were Jean de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, whose
graphic chronicle has preserved the annals of the Crusade. 1
The number of the troops is given at thirty- two thousand.
Venetian and Genoese fleets carried them to Cyprus, where
preparations had been made on a large scale for their mainten-
ance. Thence they sailed to Egypt. Damietta fell, but after
this first success, the campaign was a dismal disaster. Louis'
benevolence and ingenuousness were not combined with the
force of the leader. He was ready to share suffering with
his troops but had not the ability to organize them. 2 His
piety could not prevent the usual vices from being practised
in the camps. 3
1 Joinville, accompanied by twenty knights, joined the king at Cyprus.
He was a man of religious fervor, made pilgrimages to all the shrines in the
vicinity of his castle before his departure, and never failed in his long absence
to confine himself to bread and water on Fridays (History, an. 1260). One
of his paragraphs gives a graphic insight into the grief which must have been
felt by thousands of Crusaders as they left their homes for the long and uncer-
tain journey to the East. It runs : "In passing near the castle of Joinville,
I dared never turn my eyes that way for fear of feeling too great regret
and lest my courage should fail on leaving my children and my fair castle of
Joinville, which I loved in my heart."
2 Joinville speaks of Louis having "as much trouble in keeping his own
people together in time of peace as in the time of his ill fortunes." an. 1249.
8 Within a stone's throw of the king's tent were several brothels. A
curious punishment was prescribed by the king for a knight caught with
a harlot at Acre. Joinville, pt. II. an. 1250, Bohii's trans. 484.
284 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1019-1294.
Leaving Alexandria to one side, and following the advice
of the count of Artois, who argued that whoso wanted to kill
a snake should first strike its head, Louis marched in the
direction of the capital, Cairo, or Babylon, as it was called.
The army was harassed by a sleepless foe, and reduced by
fevers and dysentery. The Nile became polluted with the
bodies of the dead. 1 At Mansourah the Turks dealt a
crushing defeat. On the retreat which followed, the king
and the count of Poitiers were taken prisoners. The count
of Artois had been killed. The humiliation of the Crusaders
had never been so deep.
The king's patient fortitude shone brightly in these mis-
fortunes. Threatened with torture and death, he declined
to deviate from his faith or to yield up any of the places in
Palestine. For the ransom of his troops, he agreed to
pay 500,000 livres, and for his own freedom to give up
Damietta and abandon Egypt. The sultan remitted a
fifth part of the ransom money on hearing of the readiness
with which the king had accepted the terms.
Clad in garments which were a gift from the sultan, and
in a ship meagrely furnished with comforts, the king sailed
for Acre. On board ship, hearing that his brother, the
count of Anjou, and Walter de Nemours were playing for
money, he staggered from his bed of sickness and throwing
the dice, tables, and money into the sea, reprimanded the
count that he should be so soon forgetful of his brother's
death and the other disasters in Egypt, as to game. 2 At
Acre, Louis remained three years, spending large sums upon
the fortifications of Jaffa, Sidon, and other places. The
death of Blanche, his mother, who had been acting as queen-
regent during his absence, induced him to return to his
realm.
Like Richard the Lion-hearted, Louis did not look upon
1 See the appalling description of Joinville, an. 1249.
2 Joinville, an. 1250.
57. ST. LOUIS AND THE LAST CRUSADES. 285
Jerusalem. The sultan of Damascus offered him the oppor-
tunity and Louis would have accepted it but for the advice
of his councillors, 1 who argued that his separation from the
army would endanger it, and pointing to the example of
Richard, persuaded the king that it would be beneath his
dignity to enter a city he could not conquer. He set sail
from Acre in the spring of 1254. His queen, Margaret, and
the three children born to them in the East, were with him.
It was a pitiful conclusion to an expedition which once had
given promise of a splendid consummation.
So complete a failure might have been expected to destroy
all hope of ever recovering Palestine. But the hold of the
crusading idea upon the mind of Europe was still great.
Urban IV. and Clement III. made renewed appeals to
Christendom, and Louis did not forget the Holy Land.
In 1267, with his hand upon the crown of thorns, he an-
nounced to his assembled prelates and barons his purpose
to go forth a second time in holy crusade.
In the meantime the news from the East had been of con-
tinuous disaster at the hand of the enemy and of discord
among the Christians themselves. In 1258 forty Venetian
vessels engaged in conflict with a Genoese fleet of fifty ships
off Acre with a loss of seventeen hundred men. A year
later the Templars and Hospitallers had a pitched battle. In
1263.Bibars, the founder of the Mameluke rule in Egypt,
appeared before Acre. In 1268 Antioch fell.
In spite of bodily weakness and the protest of his nobles,
Louis sailed in 1270. 2 The fleet steered for Tunis, 3 proba-
bly out of deference to Charles of Anjou, now king of
Naples, who was bent upon forcing the sultan to meet his
1 Joinville, an. 1253.
2 Joinville declined the king's appeal to accompany him, and advised
against the expedition on the ground of the peaceable state of France with
the king at home, and of the king's physical weakness which prevented him
from wearing armor or sitting on horseback long at a time.
8 Since 1881 a dependency of France.
286 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
tributary obligations to Sicily. 1 Sixty thousand men consti-
tuted the expedition, but disaster was its predestined portion.
The camp was scarcely pitched on the site of Carthage when
the plague broke out. Among the victims was the king's
son, John Tristan, born at Damietta, and the king himself.
Louis died with a resignation accordant with the piety
which had marked his life. He ordered his body placed on
a bed of ashes ; and again and again repeated the prayer,
"Make us, we beseech thee, O Lord, to despise the pros-
perity of this world and not to fear any of its adversities."
The night of August 24 his mind was upon Jerusalem, and
starting up from his fevered sleep, he exclaimed, " Jerusalem !
Jerusalem! we will go." His last words, according to the
report of an attendant, were, " I will enter into thy house,
O Lord, I will worship in thy holy sanctuary, I will glorify
Thy name, O Lord." 2 The next day the royal sufferer passed
to the Jerusalem above. His body was taken to France and
laid away in St. Denis. 3 In 1297 the good king was canon-
ized, the only one of the prominent participants in the
Crusades to attain to that distinction, unless we except
St. Bernard.
58. The Last Stronghold of the Crusaders in Palestine.
With Louis the last hope of Christian tenure of any part
of Palestine was gone. At his death the French army dis-
banded.
In 1271 Edward, son and heir of Henry III. of England,
1 The sultan had agreed to pay yearly tribute to Roger II. In the treaty
made at the close of the expedition, he agreed to make up the arrearages of
tribute to Charles.
2 M. Paris, an. 1271.
8 The question whether the king's heart was deposited in the Sainte
Chapelle at Paris or not, led to a spirited discussion in 1843. See Letronne,
Examen critique de la decouverte du pretendu coeur de St. Louis faite a la
Sainte Chapelle le 15 Mai 1843, Paris, 1844 ; Lenormant, Preuves de la
decouverte du coeur de St. Louis, Paris, 1846.
58. THE LAST STRONGHOLD OF THE CRUSADERS. 287
reached Acre by way of Tunis. His expedition was but
a wing of Louis's army. A loan of 80,000 marks from
the French king enabled him to prepare the armament.
His consort Eleanor was with him, and a daughter born on
the Syrian coast was called Joan of Acre. Before returning
to England to assume the crown, he concluded an empty
treaty of peace for ten years.
Attempts were made to again fan the embers of the once
fervid enthusiasm into a flame, but in vain. Gregory X.,
who was in the Holy Land at the time of his election to the
papal chair, carried with him westward a passionate purpose
to help the struggling Latin colonies in Palestine. Before
leaving Acre, 1272, he preached from Ps. 137:5, " If I forget
thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth." His appeals, issued a day or two after his corona-
tion, met with little response. The Council of Lyons, 1274,
which he convened, had for its chief object the arrangements
for a Crusade. Two years later Gregory died, and the enter-
prise was abandoned.
In 1289 Tripoli was lost, and the bitter rivalry between
the Military Orders hastened the surrender of Acre, 1291, 1
and with it all Christian rule in Syria was brought to an
end. The Templars and Hospitallers escaped. The popula-
tion of sixty thousand was reduced to slavery or put to the
sword. For one hundred and fifty years Acre had been the
metropolis of Latin life in the East. It had furnished a
camp for army after army, and witnessed the entry and de-
parture of kings and queens from the chief states of Europe.
But the city was also a byword for turbulence and vice.
Nicolas IV. had sent ships to aid the besieged, and again
called upon the princes of Europe for help ; but his call fell
on closed ears.
As the Crusades progressed, a voice was lifted here and
there calling in question the religious propriety of such
1 For a contemporary description of Acre, see Itin. regis Hicardi, I. 32.
288 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
movements and their ultimate value. At the close of the
twelfth century, the abbot Joachim complained that the
popes were making them a pretext for their own aggrandize-
ment, and upon the basis of Joshua 6 : 26 ; 1 Kings 16 : 24,
he predicted a curse upon an attempt to rebuild the walls of
Jerusalem. "Let the popes," he said, "mourn over their
own Jerusalem that is, the universal Church not built with
hands and purchased by divine blood, and not over the
fallen Jerusalem." 1 Humbert de Romanis, general of the
Dominicans, in making out a list of matters to be handled at
the Council of Lyons, 1274, felt obliged to refute no less than
seven objections to the Crusades. They were such as these.
It was contrary to the precepts of the New Testament to
advance religion by the sword ; Christians may defend them-
selves, but have no right to invade the lands of another ; it is
wrong to shed the blood of unbelievers and Saracens ; and
the disasters of the Crusades proved they were contrary to
the will of God. 2
Raymundus Lullus, after returning from his mission to
North Africa, in 1308, declared 3 " that the conquest of the
Holy Land should be attempted in no other way than as
Christ and the Apostles undertook to accomplish it by
prayers, tears, and the offering up of our own lives. Many
are the princes and knights that have gone to the Promised
Land with a view to conquer it, but if this mode had been
pleasing to the Lord, they would assuredly have wrested it
from the Saracens before this. Thus it is manifest to pious
monks that Thou art daily waiting for them to do for love
to Thee what Thou hast done from love to them."
The successors of Nicolas IV., however, continued to cling
to the idea of conquering the Holy Land by arms. During
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they made repeated
1 Com. in Jerem., see Neander, Ch. Hist., IV. 189 sqq., Engl. trans.
2 Mansi, XXIV. 111-120.
8 Contemplations of God. See Zwemer, Life of Raymund Lull, 52, 149.
59. EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES. 289
appeals to the piety and chivalry of Western Europe, but
these were voices as from another age. The deliverance of
Palestine by the sword was a dead issue. New problems
were engaging men's minds. The authority of the popes
now in exile in Avignon, now given to a luxurious life at
Rome, or engaged in wars over papal territory was incom-
petent to unite and direct the energies of Europe as it had
once done. They did not discern the signs of the times.
More important tasks there were for Christendom to accom-
plish than to rescue the holy places of the East.
Erasmus struck the right note and expressed the view of
a later age. Writing at the very close of the Middle Ages
making an appeal 1 for the proclamation of the Gospel by
preaching and speaking of wars against the Turks, he said,
" Truly, it is not meet to declare ourselves Christian men
by killing very many but by saving very many, not if we
send thousands of heathen people to hell, but if we make
many infidels Christian; not if we cruelly curse and excom-
municate, but if we with devout prayers and with our hearts
desire their health, and pray unto God, to send them better
minds." 2
59. Effects of the Crusades.
"... The knights' bones are dust
And their good swords are rust ;
Their souls are with the saints, we trust."
COLERIDGE.
LITERATURE. A. H. L. HEEREN: Versuch einer Entwickelung der Folgen
der Kreuzzwje fur Europa, Gottingen, 1808 ; French trans., Paris, 1808.
MAXIME DE CHOISEUL-DAILLECOURT : De ^influence des croisades sur
Vetat des peuples de VEurope, Paris, 1809. Crowned by the French
1 Enchiridion militis christiani, Methuen's ed. 1905, p. 8 sq.
2 No appellation was too degrading to give to the enemies of the cross. The
most common one was dogs. The biographers of Richard I. have no com-
punction in relating in one line gifts made by Saracens and in the next call-
ing them dogs. See Itin. Ricardi, etc. So Walter Map says sepulchrum et
crux Domini prazda sunt canum quorum fames in tantum lassata fuit et
sanguine martyrorum, etc., Wright's ed., I. 15, p. 229.
u
290 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Institute, it presents the Crusades as upon the whole favorable to civil
liberty, commerce, etc. J. L. HAHN: Ursachen und Folgen der Kreuz-
zuge, Greifsw., 1859. G. B. ADAMS : Civilization during the M. A., N.Y.,
1894, 258-311. See the general treatments of the Crusades by GIBBON,
WILKEN, MICHAUD, ARCHER-KiNGSFORD, 425-451, etc., and especially
PRUTZ (Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzuge and The Economic Development
of Western Europe under the Influence of the Crusades in Essays on the
Crusades, Burlington, 1903), who in presenting the social, political, com-
mercial, and literary aspects and effects of the Crusades lays relatively
too much stress upon them.
The Crusades failed in three respects. The Holy Land
was not won. The advance of Islam was not permanently
checked. The schism between the East and the West was
not healed. These were the primary objects of the Crusades.
They were the cause of great evils. As a school of prac-
tical religion and morals, they were no doubt disastrous for
most of the Crusaders. They were attended by all the usual
demoralizing influences of war and the sojourn of armies in
an enemy's country. The vices of the Crusading camps
were a source of deep shame in Europe. Popes lamented
them. Bernard exposed them. Writers set forth the fatal
mistake of those who were eager to make conquest of the
earthly Jerusalem and were forgetful of the heavenly city.
" Many wended their way to the holy city, unmindful that
our Jerusalem is not here." So wrote the Englishman,
Walter Map, after Saladin's victories in 1187.
The schism between the East and the West was widened
by the insolent action of the popes in establishing Latin
patriarchates in the East and their consent to the establish-
ment of the Latin empire of Constantinople. The memory
of the indignities heaped upon Greek emperors and ecclesias-
tics has not yet been forgotten.
Another evil was the deepening of the contempt and
hatred in the minds of the Mohammedans for the doctrines
of Christianity. The savagery of the Christian soldiery,
their unscrupulous treatment of property, and the bitter
rancors in the Crusading camps were a disgraceful spectacle
59. EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES. 201
which could have but one effect upon the peoples of the
East. While the Crusades were still in progress, the objec-
tion was made in Western Europe, that they were not fol-
lowed by spiritual fruits, but that on the contrary the
Saracens were converted to blasphemy rather than to the
faith. Being killed, they were sent to hell. 1
Again, the Crusades gave occasion for the rapid develop-
ment of the system of papal indulgences, which became a
dogma of the mediaeval theologians. The practice, once
begun by Urban II. at the very outset of the movement, was
extended further and further until indulgence for sins was
promised not only for the warrior who took up arms against
the Saracens in the East, but for those who were willing to
fight against Christian heretics in Western Europe. Indul-
gences became a part of the very heart of the sacrament of
penance, and did incalculable damage to the moral sense of
Christendom. To this evil was added the exorbitant taxa-
tions levied by the popes and their emissaries. Matthew
Paris complains of this extortion for the expenses of Crusades
as a stain upon that holy cause. 2
And yet the Crusades were not in vain. It is not possible
to suppose that Providence did not carry out some impor-
tant, immediate and ultimate purpose for the advancement
of mankind through this long war, extending over two hun-
dred years, and involving some of the best vital forces of
two continents. It may not always be easy to distinguish
between the effects of the Crusades and the effects of other
forces active in this period, or to draw an even balance be-
tween them. But it may be regarded as certain that they
made far-reaching contributions to the great moral, reli-
1 So Humbert de Romanis, 1274 ; Mansi, XXIV. 116. A sixth objec-
tion against the Crusades as stated and answered by him ran as follows :
quod ex ista pugna non sequitur fructus spiritualis quia Saraceni magis
convertuntur ad blasphemiam quam ad Jidem; occisi autein ad infernum
mittuntur, etc.
2 II. 388, etc.
292 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
gious, and social change which the institutions of Europe
underwent in the latter half of the Middle Ages.
First, the Crusades engaged the minds of men in the con-
templation of a high and unselfish aim. The rescue of the
Holy Sepulchre was a religious passion, drawing attention
away from the petty struggles of ecclesiastics in the asser-
tion of priestly prerogative, from the violent conflict of
papacy and empire, and from the humdrum casuistry of
scholastic and conventual dispute. 1 Even Gibbon 2 admits
that "the controlling emotion with the most of the Cru-
saders was, beyond question, a lofty ideal of enthusiasm."
Considered in their effects upon the papacy, they offered
it an unexampled opportunity for the extension of its au-
thority. But on the other hand, by educating the laity and
developing secular interests, they also aided in undermin-
ing the power of the hierarchy.
As for the political institutions of Europe, they called
forth and developed that spirit of nationality which resulted
in the consolidation of the states of Europe in the form
which they have since retained with little change. When
the Crusades began, feudalism flourished. When the Cru-
sades closed, feudalism was decadent throughout Europe,
and had largely disappeared from parts of it. The need
petty knights and great nobles had to furnish themselves
with adequate equipments, led to the pawn or sale of their
estates and their prolonged absence gave sovereigns a rare
opportunity to extend their authority. And in the ad-
joining camps of armies on Syrian soil, the customs and
pride of independent national life were fostered.
Upon the literature and individual intelligence of Western
Europe, the Crusades, no doubt, exerted a powerful influence,
1 Archer, p. 447, well says : " They raised mankind above the ignoble
sphere of petty ambitions to seek after an ideal that was neither sordid nor
selfish. They called forth all that was heroic in human nature, and filled
the world with the inspiration of noble thoughts and deeds."
8 Decline and Fall, LVIII.
59. EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES. 293
although it may not be possible to weigh that influence in
exact balances. It was a matter of great -importance that
men of all classes, from the emperor to the poorest serf,
came into personal contact on the march and in the camp.
They were equals in a common cause, and learned that they
possessed the traits of a common humanity, of which the
isolation of the baronial hall kept them ignorant. The
emancipating effect which travel may always be expected to
exert, was deeply felt. 1 The knowledge of human customs
and geography was enlarged. Richard of Hoveden is able
to give the distances from place to place from England to
the Holy Land. A respectable collection of historical works
grew out of the expeditions, from the earliest annalists of
the First Crusade, who wrote in Latin, to Villehardouin and
John de Joinville who wrote in French. The fountains of
story and romance were struck, and to posterity were con-
tributed the inspiring figures of Godfrey, Tancred, and St.
Louis soldiers who realized the ideal of Christian chivalry.
As for commerce, it would be hazardous to say that the
enterprise of the Italian ports would not, in time, have de-
veloped by the usual incentives of Eastern trade and the
impulse of marine enterprise then astir. It cannot be
doubted, however, that the Crusades gave to commerce an
immense impetus. The fleets of Marseilles and the Italian
ports were greatly enlarged through the demands for the
transportation of tens of thousands of Crusaders ; and the
Pisans, Genoese, and Venetians were busy in traffic at Acre,
Damietta, and other ports. 2
1 This is clearly apparent from the English and other mediaeval chronicles,
such as the Chronicles of M. Paris, Hoveden, etc.
2 The ships of the two great Military Orders alone carried great numbers
of pilgrims. In 1182 one of their ships was wrecked on the Egyptian coast
with 1600 pilgrims. In 1180 several vessels met the same fate, 2500 pil-
grims were drowned and 1500 sold into slavery. In 1246 their ships carried
from the port of Marseilles alone 6000 pilgrims. See Prutz in Essays, p. 54.
This author, in laying weight upon the economic influences of the Crusades,
says properly, that they "had only in part to do with religion, and particu-
294 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
In these various ways the spell of ignorance and narrow-
ing prejudice was broken, and to the mind of Western
Europe a new horizon of thought and acquisition was
opened, and remotely within that horizon lay the institutions
and ambitions of our modern civilization.
After the lapse of six centuries and more, the Crusades
still have their stirring lessons of wisdom and warning, and
these are not the least important of their results. The
elevating spectacle of devotion to an unselfish aim has sel-
dom been repeated in the history of religion on so grand a
scale. This spectacle continues to be an inspiration. The
very word " crusade " is synonymous with a lofty moral or
religious movement, as the word " gospel " has come to be used
to signify every message of good.
The Crusades also furnish the perpetual reminder that
not in localities is the Church to seek its holiest satisfaction
and not by the sword is the Church to win its way; but by
the message of peace, by appeals to the heart and conscience,
and by teaching the ministries of prayer and devout worship
is she to accomplish her mission. The Crusader kneeling
in the church of the Holy Sepulchre learned the meaning
of the words, " Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He
is not here, He is risen." And all succeeding generations
know the meaning of these words better for his pilgrimage
and his mistake.
Approaching the Crusades in enthusiasm, but differing
from them as widely as the East is from the West in
methods and also in results, has been the movement of
modern Protestant missions to the heathen world which
has witnessed no shedding of blood, save the blood of its
own Christian emissaries, men and women, whose aims have
larly with the church," p. 77. Arabic words, such as damask, tarif, and
bazar, were introduced into the vocabularies of European nations, and prod-
ucts, such as saffron, maize, melons, and little onions, were carried back by
the Crusaders. The transfer of money made necessary the development of
the system of letters of credit.
60. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 295
been not the conquest of territory, but the redemption of the
race. 1
60. The Military Orders.
LITERATURE. The sources are the Rules of the orders and the scattered
notices of contemporary chroniclers. No attempt is made to give an ex-
haustive list of the literature. P. H. HELYOT : Histoire des ordres
monastiques,religieux et militaires, 8 vols. Paris, 1719. PERROT: Coll.
hist, des ordres de chivalrie, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1819. Supplementary
vol. by Fayolle, 1846. BIELENFELD: Gesch. und Verfassung aller
geistlichen und weltlichen Rittcrorden, 2 vols. Weimar, 1841. F. C.
WOODHOUSE : The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, Lon-
don, 1879. G. UHLHORN : Die christliche Liebesthatigkeit im Mittel-
alter, Stuttgart, 1884. HURTER : Life of Innocent ///., vol. IV. 318
sqq. The general Histories of the Crusades. STUBBS: Const. Hist, of
England.
For the Knights of St. John: ABBE VERTOT: Hist, des chevaliers hospi-
taliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1726, and since.
TAAFE: History of the Knights of Malta, 4 vols. London, 1852.
L. B. LARKING: The Knights Hospitallers in England, London, 1857.
A. WINTERFELD: Gesch. des Ordens St. Johannis vom Spital zu
Jerusalem, Berlin, 1859. H. VON ORTENBURG : Der Ritterorden des
hi. Johannis zu Jerusalem, 2 vols. Regensb. 1866. GENL. PORTER :
Hist, of the Knights of Malta of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem,
London, 1883. VON FINCK: Uebersicht iiber die Gesch. des ritterlichen
Ordens St. Johannis, Berlin, 1890. G. HONNICKE : Studien zur Gesch.
des Hospitalordens, 1099-1162, 1897. *J. D. LE ROULX: De prima
origine Hospitaliorum Hierosol., Paris, 1885; Cartulaire general de
VOrdre des Hospitallers St. Jean de Jerusalem, 3 vols., Paris, 1894 ; Les
Hospitallers en Terre Sainte et a Chypre, 1100-1310, Paris, 1904,
pp. 440. J. VON PFLUGK-HARTTUNG: Die Anfange des Johanniterordens
in Deutschland, Berlin, 1899, and Der Johanniter- und der Deutsche
Orden im Kampfe Ludwigs des Baiern mit der Kirche, Leipzig, 1900.
KNPOFLER : Johanniter in Weltzer-Welte, VI. 1719-1803. For other
lit. see LE ROULX : Les Hospitallers, pp. v-xiii.
For the Knights Templars: The literature is very abundant. BERNARD OF
CLAIRVAUX : De laude novae militice, ad milites templi, Migne, 182, pp.
921-940. DUPUY : Hist, des Templiers, Paris, 1650. F. WILCKE :
Gesch. des Tempelherren Ordens, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1827, 2d ed. Halle, 1860.
iThe Crusades, said the eloquent Dr. Richard S. Storrs, Bernard ofClair-
vaux, p. 558, furnished " as truly an ideal enthusiasm as that of any one who
has sought to perform his missionary work in distant lands or has wrought
into permanent laws and institutions the principles of equity and the temper
of love. And they must forever remain an example resplendent and shining
of what an enthusiasm that is careless of obstacles and fearless of dangei^can
accomplish."
296 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
*C. H. MAILLARD DB CHAMBURE : Beyle et Statnts secrets des Tern-
pliers^ Paris, 1840 (from three old French MSS.). W. HAVEMANN :
Gesch. des Ausgangs des Tempelherren Ordens, Stuttgart, 1846.
MICHELET : Proces des Templiers, 2 vols. Paris, 1841-1851. BOUTARIC :
Clement V. Philippe le Bel et les Templiers, Paris, 1874, and Documents
inedites de Philippe le Bel, Paris, 1861. * HENRI DE CURZOX: LaReyle
du Temple, Paris, 1886. *H. PRUTZ: Geheimlehre nnd Geheimstatute.n
des Tempelherren Ordens, Berlin, 1879, Entwicklung und Untergang des
Tempelherrenordens, Berlin, 1888. K. SCHOTTMULLER: D. Untergang
des Templer- Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1887. W. CUNNINGHAM: Growth
of English Industry, London, 1890. J. GMELIN : Schuld oder Unschuld
des Templerordens, Stuttgart, 1893. *DOLLINGER : Der Untergang des
Tempelordensinbis "Akadem.Vortrage," Munich, 1891,111. 245-274, the
last public address the author delivered before the Academy of Sciences
of Munich. A. GRANGE : Fall of the Knights Templars, "Dublin Re-
view," 1895, pp. 329 sqq. G. SCHNURER : D. ursprungliche Templer-
regel, Freib. 1903. Mansi, XXI. 359-372, also gives the Rule of the
Templars as set forth at the Synod of Troyes, 1128. J. A. FROUDE : The
Knights Templars in Short Essays. HEFELE-KNOPFLER, VI. *FUNK:
Templer in Wetzer-Welte, XL pp. 1311-1345. H. C. LEA: Hist,
of the Inquisition, III. and Absolution Formula of the Templars, Amer.
Soc. of Ch. Hist. Papers, V. 37-68.
For the Teutonic Knights : STREHLKE : Tabulae ordinis teutonicce.
HENNES : Codex diplomaticus ordinis 8. Marice Theutonicorum,
2 vols. Mainz, 1845-1861. E. HBNNIO : Die Statuten des deutschen
Ordens, Wtirzburg, 1866. M. PERLBACH : Die Statuten des Deutsch-
ordens, Halle, 1890. JOH. VOIGT : Gesehichte des Deutschen Bitter-
Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1857-1859. H. PRUTZ : Die Besitzungen des
deutschen Ordens im heiligen Lande, Leipzig, 1877. C. HERRLICH :
Die Bailey Brandenburg, etc., Berlin, 1886. C. LEMPENS: Gesehichte d.
Deutschen Ordens u. sr. Ordensldnder Preussen u. Livland, 1904.
RANKE : Univ. Hist., VIII. 455-480. UHLHORN : Deutschorden, in
Herzog, IV.
" And by the Holy Sepulchre
I've pledged my knightly sword
To Christ, His blessed church, and her,
The mother of our Lord."
WHITTIEB, Knights of St. John.
A product of the Crusades and their most important
adjunct were the three great Military Orders, the Knights of
St. John, the Knight Templars, and the Teutonic Knights.
They combined monastic vows with the profession of arms.
Their members were fighting monks and armed almoners.
They constituted a standing army of Crusaders and wore
60. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 297
the vigilant guardians of Latin institutions in Palestine for
nearly two centuries. The Templars and 'the Knights of
St. John did valiant service on many a battle-field in
Palestine and Asia Minor. 1 In 1187 they shared in the
disastrous defeat of the Christian forces at Tiberias. From
that time their strength was concentrated at Acre. 2 After
the fall of Acre, 1291, the three orders retired to Europe,
holding the Turks in check for two centuries longer in the
South and extending civilization to the provinces on the
Baltic in the North. They combined the element of romance,
corresponding to the chivalric spirit of the age, with the
element of philanthropy corresponding to its religious
spirit.
These orders speedily attained to great popularity, wealth,
and power. Kings did them honor. Pope after pope
extended their authority and privileges. Their grand mas-
ters were recognized as among the chief personages of Chris-
tendom. But with wealth and popularity came pride and
decay. The strength of the Knights of St. John and the
Templars was also reduced by their rivalry which became
the scandal of Europe, and broke out into open feuds and
pitched battles as before Acre, 1241 to 1243 and in 1259. 3
After the fall of Acre, which was ascribed in large part to
their jealousy, Nicholas IV. sought to combine them. 4 The
Knights of St. John were predominantly a French order,
the Teutonic Knights exclusively a German order. The
Templars were oecumenical in their constituency.
1 At the battle of Gaza with the Chorasmians, 1244, of two hundred and six-
teen Knights of St. John who entered the battle, two hundred remained
dead on the field.
2 After the battle of Tiberias, the Knights of St. John, for a few years,
made their strong fortress, Margat, the base of their operations.
8 See M. Paris, an. 1259. The famous antithesis of Gibbon (chap. LVIII.)
pleases the ear and contains some truth, but makes a wrong impression.
"The Knights of the Temple and St. John neglected to live, but they pre-
pared to die in the service of Christ."
* The synod of Salzburg, 1292, decided in favor of the union.
298 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
I. The order of the Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers, 1
derived its name from the church of St. John the Baptist in
Jerusalem. 2 It seems to have grown out of a hospital in the
city erected for the care of sick and destitute pilgrims. As
early as the time of Charlemagne a hospital existed there.
Before the year 1000 a cloister seems to have been founded
by the Normans close by the church of the Holy Sepulchre
known as St. Maria de Latina, with accommodations for the
sick. 3 About 1065 or 1070 a hospital was built by a mer-
chant from Amalfi, Maurus. 4 At the time of the capture
of Jerusalem, Gerard stood at the head of one of these insti-
tutions. Gerard seems to have come from Southern France. 5
He prescribed for his brotherhood a mantle of black with a
white cross. Godfrey of Bouillon liberally endowed it and
Baldwin further enriched it with one-tenth of the booty
taken at the siege of Joppa. Gerard died in 1120 and was
succeeded by Raymund du Puy, who gave the order great
fame and presided over it for forty years. 6
The order increased with astonishing rapidity in numbers,
influence, and wealth. Gifts were received from all parts
of Europe, the givers being remembered in prayers offered
1 Fratres hospitalis 8. Johannis, Hospitalarii, Johannitce, milites hospi-
talis 8. Johannis. From the fourteenth century they were also known as
the Knights of Rhodes and from the sixteenth as the Knights of Malta.
For a list of the houses of the female members of this order, Le Roulx, Les
Hospitallers, 300 sq.
2 The bull of Pascal, II. 1113, speaks of the hospital in Jerusalem adjoining
the church of the Baptist, xenodochium . . . juxta Beati Johannis Bap-
tistce ecclesiam.
8 William of Tyre, XVIII. 5 ; de Vitry, Hist. Jems., 64. The Mary, whose
name the convent bore, was Mary Magdalene.
* Le Roulx, Les Hospitallers, 33, connects the order with the hospital
founded by Maurus, nous crayons pouvoir persister a penser que les Amalfi-
tans furent les precurseurs des Hospitallers.
6 William of Tyre, VII. 23, states that he was held in chains during the
siege of Jerusalem.
6 See Le Roulx, pp. 44 sqq. Gerard is called in an old chronicle " Guardian
of the hospital of the poor in Jerusalem," guardianus hospitalis pauperum,
etc., Hurter, IV. 315, note.
60. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 299
up in Jerusalem. Raymund systematized the rules of the
brotherhood and gave it a compact organization and in 1113
it gained papal sanction through Pascal II. At that time
there were affiliated houses at St. Giles, Asti, Pisa, Otranto,
and Tarentum. 1 In 1122 Calixtus II. made the important
announcement that those giving protection to pilgrims were
entitled to the same reward as the pilgrims themselves and
all who gave to the Hospital in the earthly Jerusalem, should
receive the joys of the heavenly. Bull followed bull, grant-
ing the order privileges. Innocent III. exempted the mem-
bers from excommunication at the hand of bishops and made
the order amenable solely to the pope. Anastasius IV., 1154,
gave them the right to build churches, chapels, and grave-
yards in any locality. 2
The military feature of the organization was developed
after the philanthropic feature of nursing and caring for
unfortunate pilgrims and it quickly became the dominant
feature. Raymund du Puy makes a clear distinction in the
order between cleric and lay brethren. Innocent II., 1130,
speaks of its members as priests, knights, and lay brethren,
the last taking no vows. In its perfected organization the
order was divided into three classes, knights, chaplains, and
serving brethren. The knights and chaplains were bound
by the threefold pledge of charity, poverty, and obedience. 3
The military brothers or knights formed the majority of the
1 Woodhouse, p. 20, gives a list of no less than fifty-four houses belonging
to the Hospital in England.
2 The bull in Mansi, XXI. 780.
8 They were monks. The order had no priests until the time of Alexan-
der III. , who gave it the right to receive priests and clerics. Priests became
necessary in order that the new custom might be followed which gave to
priests alone the right of absolution. During the first century of their
existence, the members of military orders made confession of their sins
in the open chapters and were punished at the order of the Master by
public scourging or otherwise. The strict church law of confession and of
absolution by the priest was not defined till later by the Fourth Lateran
Council, and Thomas Aquinas. See Lea, The Absolution Formula of the
Templars.
300 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
order and from them the officials were elected. 1 The hospital
work was not abandoned. In 1160 John of Wizburg states
from personal observation that more than two thousand sick
were cared for in the hospital of Jerusalem, and that in a
single day forty deaths occurred. After the transfer of the
order to Rhodes, the knights continued to carry on hospital
work.
After Clement IV., 1267, the title of the chief official was
" Grand master of the Hospital of Jerusalem and Guardian
of the Poor of Jesus Christ." The distinctive dress of the
order was, after 1259, a red mantle with a white Maltese
cross worn on the left breast that " God through this emblem
might give faith and obedience and protect us and all our
Christian benefactors from the power of the devil." Its
motto was pro fide, "for the faith." 2 The whole body was
divided about 1320 into seven langues or provinces, Pro-
vence, France, Auvergne, Italy, Germany, Aragon, England.
Castile was added in 1464. Affiliated houses in Europe arid
the East sent two-thirds of their income to Jerusalem. 3 One
of the interesting rules of the order was that the knights
always went two and two and carried their own light with
them.
After the fall of Acre, the Hospitallers established them-
selves on the island of Cyprus and in 1310 removed to the
island of Rhodes, where massive walls and foundations con-
tinue to attest the labor expended upon their fortifications
and other buildings. From Rhodes, as a base, they did
honorable service.
Under the grand master La Valette, the Knights bravely
defended Malta against the fleet of Suleymon the Mag-
1 Le Roulx, 290 sq.
2 For the formula of admission, see Le Roulx, 288 sq.
8 See Uhlhorn for the amount of linen and other goods expected from the
various houses in Europe. There was a female branch of the order of which,
however, very little is known. In 1188 Sancha, queen of Aragon, founded a
rich convent for it at Sixena near Saragossa.
t)0. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 301
nificent until Europe felt the thrill of relief caused by the
memorable defeat of the Turkish fleet by Don John at
Lepanto, 1571. From that time the order continued to
decay. 1
II. The Knight Templars 2 before the fall of Acre had, if
possible, a more splendid fame than the Knights of St. John;
but the order had a singularly tragic ending in 1312, and was
dissolved under moral charges of the most serious nature.
From the beginning they were a military body. The order
owes its origin to Hugo de Payens (or Payns) and Godfrey
St. Omer, who entered Jerusalem riding on one horse, 1119.
They were joined by six others who united with them in mak-
ing a vow to the patriarch of Jerusalem to defend by force of
arms pilgrims on their way from the coast to Jerusalem.
Baldwin II. gave the brotherhood quarters in his palace
on Mount Moriah, near the site of Solomon's temple, whence
the name Templars is derived. Hugo appeared at the
council of Troyes in 1128, 3 and made such persuasive ap-
peals at the courts of France, England, and Germany, that
three hundred knights joined the order. St. Bernard wrote
a famous tract in praise of the "new soldiery." 4 He says :
" Never is an idle word, or useless deed, or immoderate
laughter or murmur, if it be but in a whisper, among the
Templars allowed to go unpunished. They take no pleasure
in the absurd pastime of hawking. Draughts and dice they
abhor. Ribald songs and stage plays they eschew as insane
follies. They cut their hair close ; they are begrimed
1 On October 31, 1898, the emperor William II. of Germany, while on a
visit to Jerusalem, dedicated the Protestant church of the Redeemer, built on
the ancient site of the hospital of the Knights of St. John, opposite the
church of the Holy Sepulchre.
2 Templarii, fratres militice templi, equites templarii, pauperes commili-
tiones Christi templique Salamonis, are some of the titles by which they
were known. There was not nearly as much resemblance between the Hos-
pitallers and Templars as between the Templars and Teutonic knights.
Curzon, p. xi.
8 William of Tyre. See Hefele, V. 401 sq. * De laude novce militice.
302 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
with dirt and swarthy from the weight of their armor and
the heat of the sun. They never dress gayly, and wash sel-
dom. They strive to secure swift and strong horses, but not
garnished with ornaments or decked with trappings, thinking
of battle and victory, not of pomp and show. Such has God
chosen to vigilantly guard the Holy Sepulchre." l
The order spread with great rapidity. 2 Matthew Paris, no
doubt, greatly exaggerates when he gives the number of their
houses in the middle of the thirteenth century as nine thou-
sand. 3 Their annual revenues have been estimated as high as
54,000,000 francs. 4 The order was divided into provinces,
five of them in the east Jerusalem, Tripolis, Antioch,
Cyprus, and the Morea ; and eleven in the west France,
Aquitaine, Provence, Aragon, Portugal, Lombardy, Hun-
gary, England, Upper and Lower Germany, Sicily, and
perhaps a twelfth, Bohemia. Popes, beginning with Hono-
rius II., heaped favors upon them. They were relieved from
paying taxes of all sorts. They might hold services twice a
year in churches where the interdict was in force. Their
goods were placed under the special protection of the Holy
See. In 1163 Alexander III. granted them permission to
have their own priests. 5
Like the Hospitallers, the Templars took the triple vow
and, in addition, the vow of military service and were di-
1 On St. Bernard's services to the order, see the biographies by Morison,
141 sqq., and Storrs, 567-574.
2 In England they settled at the old Temple outside of Holborn, whence
they removed to the new Temple on the Thames, 1185. The Temple church
was completed in 1240. M. Paris gives an account of the dedication and the
banquet which was provided by the Hospitallers. Stephen and his queen
gave the Templars several places about 1150. Woodhouse, p. 260, gives a
list of twenty-seven English houses. 8 An. 1244.
* At the end of the thirteenth century. This is the estimate of de Cham-
bure. Schottmuller estimates them at 40,000,000 franca William of
Tyre, XII. 7, speaks of their possessions as " immense." Their wealth and
greed were proverbial.
6 Funk calls Alexander's bull the Magna Charta of the order. Wetzer-
Welte, XI. 1315.
60. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 303
vided into three classes: the knights who were of noble birth,
the men at arms or serving brethren (fratres servientes,
armigeri), and chaplains who were directly amenable to the
pope. The dress of the knights was a white mantle with
a red cross, of the serving brethren a dark habit with a red
cross. The knights cropped their hair short and allowed
their beards to grow. They were limited to three horses,
except the grand master who was allowed four, and were
forbidden to hunt except the lion, the symbol of the devil,
who goes about seeking whom he may devour. 1 The order
had for its motto " not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy
name, O Lord, give the glory." 2 The members in cloister
observed the regular conventual hours for prayer, and ate
at a common table. If money was found in the effects of a
deceased brother, his body was denied all prayer and funeral
services and placed in unconsecrated ground like a slave. 3
They were bidden to flee from the kisses of women and never
to kiss a widow, virgin, mother, sister, or any other female. 4
On acount of their poverty, two ate from the same dish, but
each had his own portion of wine to himself. 5
The head of the order was called Grand Master, was
granted the rank of a prince, and included in the invita-
tions to the oecumenical councils, as, for example, the
Fourth Lateran and the second council of Lyons. The
Master of the Temple in England was a baron with seat in
Parliament.
The Templars took part in all the Crusades except the
first and the crusade of Frederick II., from which they held
aloof on account of the papal prohibition. Their discipline
was conspicuous on the disastrous march of the French from
1 With reference to 1 Pet. 5 : 8, Curzon, 58.
2 Non nobis, Domine, now nobis sed tuo nomini da gloriam.
3 Curzon, XXVII.
4 Fugiat femince oscula Christi militia, Mansi, XXI. 72 ; also Schniirer,
153.
6 Schniirer, Rule XI. p. 138,
304 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Laodicea to Attalia and their valor at the battle of Hattim,
before Gaza 1 and on many other fields. 2 The order degener-
ated with riches and success. 3 To drink like a Templar,
bibere templariter, became proverbial for fast living. Their
seal, representing the two founders entering Jerusalem in
poverty on one horse, early came to misrepresent their real
possessions.
A famous passage in the history of Richard of England
set forth the reputation the Templars had for pride. When
Fulke of Neuilly was preaching the Third Crusade, he told
Richard he had three daughters and called upon him to pro-
vide for them in marriage. The king exclaimed, " Liar, I
have no daughters." " Nay, thou hast three evil daughters,
Pride, Lust, and Luxury," was the priest's reply. Turning to
his courtiers, Richard retorted, " He bids me marry my three
daughters. Well, so be it. To the Templars, I give my
first-born, Pride, to the Cistercians my second-born, Lust>
and to the prelates the third, Luxury." 4
1 M. Paris, Luard's ed., IV. 337 sqq., gives the letters from the patriarch of
Jerusalem and the vice-master of the Temple, 1244. This chronicler is
very severe upon the Templars for their arrogant pride and their jealous ri-
valry of the Hospitallers. An example of this jealousy was their refusal to
accompany King Amalric to Egypt because to the Hospitallers had been
assigned first place.
2 Among their fortresses was the castle Pilgrim near Acre, built 1218, whose
great size and splendor are described by James de Vitry.
8 The houses of the order became important money centres in. France and
England in the thirteenth century, and furnished to kings, bishops, and
nobles a safety-deposit for funds and treasures of plate, jewels, and important
records. Henry III. and other English kings borrowed from them, as did also
French kings. The Templars also acted as disbursers for monies loaned by
Italian bankers or as trustees for other monies, as, for example, the annual
grantof one thousand marks promised by John to his sister-in-law, Berengaria.
John frequently stopped at the house of the Templars in London. See
Cunningham, Growth of English Industries and Commerce, 3d ed. Leopold
Delisle, Les operations financieres des Templiers, Paris, 1889. Eleanor
Ferris, Financial Relations of the Knights Templars to the English Crown,
in " Am. Hist. Rev.," October, 1902.
* Charasson, quoting Richard de Hoveden, Vie de Foulques de Neuilly,
89 sq.
60. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 305
The order survived the fall of Acre less than twenty
years. After finding a brief refuge in Cyprus the knights
concentrated their strength in France, where the once fa-
mous organization was suppressed by the violent measures
of Philip the Fair and Clement V. The story of the sup-
pression belongs to the next period.
III. The order of the Teutonic Knights 1 never gained
the prominence in Palestine of the two older orders.
During the first century of its existence, its members de-
voted themselves to the maintenance and care of hospitals
on the field of battle. They seldom appeared until the
historic mission of the order opened in the provinces of
what is now northeastern Germany which were reduced to
subjection and to a degree of civilization by its arms and
humanizing efforts.
The order dates from 1190, when a hospital was erected
in a tent under the walls of Acre by pilgrims from Bremen
and Liibeck. Frederick of Swabia commended it, and
Clement III. sanctioned it, 1191. 2 It was made a military
order in 1198 by a bull of Innocent III. 3 and in 1221
Honorious III. conferred upon it the privileges enjoyed by
the Hospitallers and Templars. The order was made up
almost exclusively of German elements. 4 The members
took the triple vow. Their dress was a white mantle with
a black cross. Women were affiliated with some of the
hospitals, as at Bremen. The first possession of the order
in Europe was a convent at Palermo, the gift of Henry VI.,
1197. Its first hospital in Germany was St. Kunigunde,
1 Deutscher Orden, Oi'do 8. Marice Theutonicorum.
2 Under the name domus hospitalis S. Marios Theutonicorum' in Jerusa-
lem. A German hospital was dedicated in Jerusalem to St. Mary, 1128.
8 At the council of Constance, 1415, the king of Poland protested against
their right to convert by the sword.
4 In the conflict of Lewis the Bavarian with the papacy, the Teutonic
order espoused the emperor's cause and received from him important gifts
and privileges
x
306 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
at Halle. Subsequently its hospitals extended from Bremen
and Liibeck to Niirnberg and further south. Its territory
was divided into bailiwicks, lalleyen, of which there were
twelve in Germany. The chief officer, called Grand Mas-
ter, had the dignity of a prince of the empire.
Under Hermann von Salza (1210-1239), the fourth grand
master, the order grew with great rapidity. Von Salza was
a trusted adviser of Frederick II., and received the privi-
lege of using the black eagle in the order's banner. Fol-
lowing the invitation of the monk Christian and of Konrad
of Morovia, 1226, to come to their relief against the Prussians,
he diverted the attention and activity of the order from the
Orient to this new sphere. The order had the promise of
Culmland and half of its conquests for its assistance.
After the fall of Acre, the headquarters were transferred
to Venice and in 1309 to Marienburg on the Vistula, where
a splendid castle was erected. Henceforth the knights
were occupied with the wild territories along the Baltic
and southwards, whose populations were still in a semi-
barbaric state. In the hour when the Templars were being
suppressed, this order was enjoying its greatest prosperity.
In 1237 it absorbed the Brothers of the Sword. 1
At one time the possessions of the Teutonic knights in-
cluded fifty cities such as Culm, Marienburg, Thorn, and
Konigsberg, and lands with a population of two million.
Its missionary labors are recorded in another chapter.
With the rise of Poland began the shrinkage of the order,
and in the battle of Tannenberg, 1410, its power was greatly
shaken. In 1466 it gave up large blocks of territory to
Poland, including Marienburg, and the grand master swore
fealty to the Polish king. The order continued to hold
Prussia and Sameland as fiefs. But the discipline had
become loose, as was indicated by the popular saying,
"Dressing and undressing, eating and drinking, and going
1 Fratres militia Christi, gladiferi, a military order founded in 1202.
60. THE MILITARY ORDERS. 307
to bed are the work the German knights do." 1 In 1511
the margrave, Albrecht of Brandenburg, "was made grand
master and refused to be a vassal of Poland. Following
the counsel of Luther, he laid down the mantle and cross
of the order, married 1523, and laid the foundation of the
greatness of the duchy of Prussia, which he made hereditary
in his family, the Hohenzollern. 2 The black eagle passed to
the Prussian coat of arms. 3
1 Kleider aws, Kleider an, Essen, Trinken, Schlafengehen, ist die Arbeit so
die Deutsche Herren han.
2 Luther in 1523 wrote a tract calling upon the Teutonic knights to abandon
their false rule of celibacy and to practise the true chastity of marriage.
Ermahnung an die Herren Deutschen Ordens falsche Keuschheit zu meiden und
zur rechten ehelichen Keuschheit zu greifen. Albrecht introduced the Lutheran
reformation into Brandenburg. He married the Danish princess Dorothea.
3 Several orders combining military and religious vows existed in Spain
and Portugal and did service against the Moors. The order of lago of Cam-
postella received the papal sanction in 1175 and protected pilgrims to the
shrine of Campostella. The order of Calatrava received papal approval 1164,
and took an active part in the struggle against the Moors. The order of
Alcantara was recognized by Lucius III., 1183. The headship of the last
two bodies was transferred to the crown under Ferdinand the Catholic.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MONASTIC ORDERS.
>
61. The Revival of Monasticism.
LITERATURE. The Letters of ANSELM, BERNARD, PETER THE VENERABLE,
WILLIAM OF THIERRY, HILDEGARD, etc. AB^LARD: Hist, calamita-
ttim, his autobiography, Migne, 178. HONORIUS OF AUTUN : De vita
claustrali, Migne, 172, 1247 sqq. BERNARD: De conversione ad
clericos sermo, in Migne, 182, 853-59, and Deproncepto et dispensation,
851-953. The Treatments of THOMAS AQUINAS, DUNS SCOTUS, etc.,
in their Summas. PETRUS VENERABLIS : De miraculis, in Migne, 189.
(LESAR OF HEISTERBACH (ab. 1240) : Dialogus- Miraculorum, ed. by
J, Strange, 2 vols. Col. 1851. Excerpts in German trans, by A. KAUF-
MANN, 2 parts, Col. 1888 sq. THOS. A CHANTIMPRE (d. about 1270) :
Bonum universale de apibus, a comparison of a convent to a beehive.
Excerpts in German by A. KAUFMANN, Col. 1899 ; Annales monastici,
ed. by LUARD, 5 vols. London, 1865-69. JACOBUS DE VORAGINE :
Legenda aurea, English by W. CAXTON (about 1470), Temple classics
ed. 7 vols. London, 1890. WILLIAM or ST. AMOUR (d. 1272) : De peri-
culis novissorum temporum inDenifle Chartularium Univ., Paris, vol. I.
The Lives of ANSELM, BERNARD, WILLIAM OF THIERRY, FRANCIS,
DOMINIC, NORBERT, etc. H. HELYOT (Franciscan, d. 1716) : Hist, des
ordres monastiques, religieux et militaires et des congregations secu-
lieres de Vune et de Vautre sexe qui out ete etablies jusqu" 1 a present, 8 vols.
Paris, 1714-19 ; Germ, trans., 8 vols. Leip. 1753-56. He gives a long
list of the older authorities. MRS. JAMIESON : Legends of the Monastic
Orders, London, 1850. A. BUTLER: Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs,
and Other Principal Saints, 12 vols. Dublin, 1868 sqq. SIR WILLIAM
DUGDALE: Monasticon anglicanum, ed.by J. CALEY, etc., 8 vols. London,
1846. Based on the ed. of 1817. T. D. FOSBROKE : Brit. Monasticism,
or Manners and Customs of the Monks and Nuns of England, London,
1803,3d ed. 1845. MONTALEMBERT : Les moins d'occident depuis St.
Benoit jusqu 1 a St. Bernard, Paris, 1860-77 ; Engl. trans., 7 vols.
London, 1861 sqq. O. T. HILL: Engl. Monasticism, Its Rise and In-
fluence, London, 1867. S. R. MAITLAND : The Dark Ages, ed. by
FRED. STOKES, 5th ed., London, 1890. WISHART : Short Hist, of Monks
and Monasticism, Trenton, 1900. E. L. TAUNTON: The Engl. Black
Monks of St. Benedict, 2 vols. London, 1897. A. GASQUET : Engl.
Monastic Life, London, 1904, and since. HDRTER : Innocent III., vol.
308
61. THE REVIVAL OP MONASTICISM. 309
IV. 84-311. J. C. ROBKKTSOX : View of Europe during the Middle
Ages, in introd. to his Life of Chas. V. H. VON'EICKEN: Gesch. und
System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887. A. JES-
SOPP : The Coming of the Friars, London, no date, 7th ed., chap.
Daily Life in a Med. Monastery, 113-166. HARNACK : Monasticism,
Giessen, 1882, 5th ed. 1901, trans, by C. R. GILLETT, N.Y., 1895. STE-
PHENS: Hist, of the Engl. Church, chap. XIV. (Monastic Orders). HAUCK,
III. 441-516, IV. 311-409. LITTLEDALE : Monachism, in Enc. Brit.
DENIFLE: Luther und Lutherthum, Mainz, 1904 sq. , draws in his treat-
ment of monasticisin, upon his great resources of mediaeval scholarship.
THE glorious period of monasticism fell in the Middle
Ages, and more especially in the period that is engaging our
attention. The convent was the chief centre of true reli-
gion as well as of dark superstition. With all the imposing
movements of the age, the absolute papacy, the Crusades,
the universities, the cathedrals and scholasticism, the monk
was efficiently associated. He was, with the popes, the
chief promoter of the Crusades. He was among the great
builders. He furnished the chief teachers to the universi-
ties and numbered in his order the profoundest of the
Schoolmen. The mediaeval monks were the Puritans, the
Pietists, the Methodists, the Evangelicals of their age. 1 All
these classes of Christians have this in common, that they
make earnest with their religion, and put it into zealous
practice.
If it be compared with the monachism of the earlier period
of the Church, the mediaeval institution will be found to
equal it in the number of its great monks and to exceed it in
useful activity. Among the distinguished Fathers of the
Post-Nicene period who advocated monasticism were St.
Anthony of Egypt, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa,
Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Benedict of Nursia. In
1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa, II. (2), 188,6 sqq., Migne, III. 1372 sqq.,
combines the active and contemplative features of the monastic life, as did
Benedict of Jfursia, but laying more stress than the latter upon the active
feature. It must be remembered that Thomas was a Dominican, and had
had full experience of the practical activity of the two great mendicant
orders.
310 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the Middle Ages the list is certainly as imposing. There
we have Anselm, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, Thomas
Aquinas, and Duns Scotus among the Schoolmen, St. Ber-
nard and Hugo de St. Victor, Eckart, and Tauler among the
mystics, Hildegard and Joachim of Flore among the seers,
the authors of the Dies irce and Stabat mater and Adam de
St. Victor among the hymnists, Anthony of Padua, Bernar-
dino of Siena, Berthold of Regensburg and Savonarola
among the preachers, and in a class by himself, Francis
d'Assisi.
Of the five epochs in the history of monasticism two be-
long to the Middle Ages proper. 1 The appearance of the
hermit and the development of the eremite mode of life be-
long to the fourth century. Benedict of Nursia of the sixth
century, and his well-systematized rule, mark the second
epoch. The development of the Society of Jesus in the
sixteenth century marks the last epoch. The two between
are represented by the monastic revival, starting from the
convent of Cluny as a centre in the tenth and eleventh cen-
turies, and the rise and spread of the mendicant orders in
the thirteenth century. Cluny was for a century almost the
only reforming force in Western Europe till the appearance
of Hildebrand on the stage, and he himself was probably
trained in the mother convent. Through its offshoots and
allied orders Cluny continued to be a burning centre of re-
ligious zeal for a century longer. Then, at a time of monas-
tic declension, the mendicant orders, brought into existence
by St. Francis d'Assisi and Dominic of Spain, became the
chief promoters of one of the most notable religious revivals
that has ever swept over Europe.
The work done by men like William of Hirschau, Bruno
and Norbert in Germany, Bernard and Peter the Venerable
1 This is the classification of Harnack, Monasticism, 44 sqq. Denifle, Luther
und Lutherthum, I. 199 sqq., who fiercely combats Harnack, says " it is the
height of misunderstanding, Unverstand, to speak of Jesuitism as monastic."
61. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM. 311
in France, and St. Francis in Italy, cannot be ignored in any
true account of the onward progress of mankind. However
much we may decline to believe that monasticism is a higher
form of Christian life, we must give due credit to these men,
or deny to a series of centuries all progress and good what-
soever.
The times were favorable for the development of monastic
communities. If our own is the age of the laic, the mediae-
val period was the age of the monk. Society was unsettled
and turbulent. The convent offered an asylum of rest and
of meditation. Bernard calls his monks " the order of the
Peaceful." Feud and war ruled without. Every baronial
residence was a fortress. The convent was the scene of
brotherhood and co-operation. It furnished to the age the
ideal of a religious household on earth. The epitaphs of
monks betray the feeling of the time, pacificus, "the peace-
ful " ; tranquilla pace serenus, " in quiet and undisturbed re-
pose " ; fraternce pads amicus, " friend of brotherly peace."
The circumstances are presented by Caesar of Heister-
bach under which a number of monks abandoned the world,
and were " converted^' that is, determined to enter a con-
vent. Now the decision was made at a burial. 1 Now it was
due to the impression made by the relation of the wonderful
things which occurred in convents. This was the case with
a young knight, Geiiach, 2 who listened to an abbot who was
then visiting a castle, as he told his experiences within
cloistral walls. Gerlach went to Paris to study, but could
not get rid of the seed which had been sown in his heart,
and entered upon the monastic novitiate. Sometimes the
decision was made in consequence of a sermon. 3 Caesar
of Heisterbach himself was " converted " by a description
given by Gerard of Walberberg, abbot of Heisterbach, while
they were on the way to Cologne during the troublous
times of Philip of Swabia and Otto IV. Gerard described
1 Dial., I. 21 ; Strange ed. I. 28. 2 DiaL ^ j. 18 . 3 j) ia i^ j. 24.
312 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the appearance of the Virgin, her mother Anna, and St.
Mary Magdalene, who descended from the mountain and re-
vealed themselves to the monks of Clairvaux while they
were engaged in the harvest, dried the perspiration from
their foreheads, and cooled them by fanning. Within three
months Caesar entered the convent of Heisterbach. 1
There were in reality only two careers in the Middle Ages,
the career of the knight and the career of the monk. It
would be difficult to say which held out the most attractions
and rewards, even for the present life. The monk himself
was a soldier. The well-ordered convent offered a daily drill,
exercise following exercise with the regularity of clockwork;
and though the enemy was not drawn up in visible array
on open field, he was a constant reality. 2 Barons, counts,
princes joined the colonies of the spiritual militia, hoping
thereby to work out more efficiently the problem of their
salvation and fight their conflict with the devil. The Third
Lateran, 1179, bears witness to the popularity of the conven-
tual life among the higher classes, and the tendency to restrict
it to them, when it forbade the practice of receiving money as
a price of admission to the vow. 3 The monk proved to be
stronger than the knight and the institution of chivalry
decayed before the institution of monasticism which still
survives.
. By drawing to themselves the best spirits of the time, the
convents became in their good daj's, from the tenth well into
the thirteenth century, hearthstones of piety, and the chief
1 Dial., 1. 17 ; Strange ed. I. 24.
2 See Church, Life of St. Anselm, chap. III., The Discipline of a Nor-
man Monastery.
8 In England the gentry class was especially drawn upon. See Jessopp,
p. 161. At Morimond, Otto son of the margrave of Austria stopped overnight
with fifteen young nobles. The sound of the bells and the devotions of the
monks made such an impression that they prayed to be received into the
brotherhood. Henry, son of Louis VI., was so moved by what he saw
on a visit to Clairvaux that he determined to take the vow. See Morison,
Life of St. Bernard, p. 196.
61. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM. 313
centres of missionary and civilizing agencies. When there
was little preaching, the monastic community preached the
most powerful sermon, calling men's thoughts away from
riot and bloodshed to the state of brotherhood and religious
reflection. 1 The motto aratro et cruce, "by the cross and the
plough," stood in their case for a reality. The monk was a
pioneer in the cultivation of the ground, and, after the most
scientific fashion then known, taught agriculture, the culture
of the vine and fish, the breeding of cattle, and the culture of
wool. He built roads and the best buildings. In intellec-
tual and artistic concerns the convent was the chief school
of the times. It trained architects, painters, and sculptors.
There the deep problems of theology and philosophy were
studied ; there manuscripts were copied, and when the
universities arose, the convent furnished them with their first
and their most renowned teachers. In northeastern Ger-
many and other parts of Europe and in Asia it was the outer
citadel of church profession and church activity.
So popular was the monastic life that religion seemed to be
in danger of running out into monkery and society of being
transformed into an aggregation of convents. The Fourth
Lateran sought to counteract this tendency by forbidding
the establishment of new orders. 2 But no council was ever
more ignorant of the immediate future. Innocent III. was
scarcely in his grave before the Dominicans and Franciscans
received full papal sanction.
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the important
change was accomplished whereby all monks received
priestly ordination. Before that time it was the exception
for a monk to be a priest. Extreme unction and absolu-
tion had been administered in the convent by unordained
1 Montalembert lays stress upon intercessory prayer as the chief service
rendered by the monastery of the West. " They prayed much, they prayed
always for those whose prayers were evil or who prayed not at all." Monks
of the West, Eugl. trans., I. 42 sq. 2 Canon 13.
314 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
monks. 1 With the development of the strict theory of
sacerdotalism, these functions were forbidden to them, as by
the ninth oecumenical council, 1123. The synod of Nismes,
thirty years earlier, 1096, thought it answered objections to
the new custom sufficiently by pointing to Gregory the Great,
Gregory of Tours, and Augustine as cases of monks who had
priestly ordination. On the other hand the active move-
ment within the convents to take a larger part in the affairs
of society was resisted by oecumenical councils, as, for ex-
ample, the Second Late ran, 1139, which forbade monks
practising as physicians or lawyers.
The monastic life was praised as the highest form of
earthly existence. The convent was compared to Canaan 2
and treated as the shortest and surest road to heaven. The
secular life, even the life of the secular priest, was compared
to Egypt. The passage to the cloister was called conversion,
and the monks converts, conversi, or the religious. 3 They
reached the Christian ideal. Renouncing the vow was pro-
nounced turning to the company of the lost, to the lion's
mouth, and to the realm of blackness and death. *
1 This has been sufficiently shown by Lea, Absolution Formula of the
Templars, in Papers of Am. Soc. of Ch. Hist., vol. V.; also Hefele, V. 381.
As late, however, as the thirteenth century there were monks in England
who had not received priestly ordination. See Stevenson, Life of Grosse-
teste, 158. In the fifth century the consecration of the monk was treated
in some quarters as a distinct sacrament.
2 It would be difficult to find more attractive pictures of earthly happiness
than are given in the descriptions of mediaeval convents by eye-witnesses, as
of the convent of Clairvaux by William of St. Thierry, Migne, 185, 248, and
Peter de Roy a, Migne, 182, 710.
8 It was even compared to the conversion of St. Paul. See Eicken, 324.
Csesar of Heisterbach devotes a chapter of his Dialogus to conversion, that is,
the assumption of the monastic vow. Canon 13 of the Fourth Lateran,
Mansi, XXII. 1002, speaks of monastics as " the religious," of the orders as
" religions," and of entering a convent as " being converted to religion." So
Martin V. at the Council of Constance, 1418, charges Wyclif with declaring
that " all religions owe their origin to the devil," that is, all orders. Mirbt,
Quellen, 158.
4 St. Bernard, Ep., 112 ; Migne, 182, 255 sq.
61. THE ilEVIVAL OF MOXASTICISM. 315 '
Bishop Otto of Freising speaks of the monks as " spend-
ing their lives like angels in heavenly purity and holiness.
They live together one in heart and soul, give themselves
at one signal to sleep, lift up as by one impulse their lips in
prayer and their voices in reading. . . . They go so far, that
while they are refreshing the body at table, they listen to the
reading of the Scriptures. . . . They give up their own wills,
their earthly possessions, and their parents, and, following the
command of the Gospel and Christ, constantly bear their
cross by mortifying the flesh, being all the while full of heav-
enly homesickness." 1
The enthusiastic advocacy of the monastic life can only
be explained by a desire to get relief from the turbu-
lence of the social world and a sincere search after holiness.
There is scarcely a letter of Anselm in which he does not ad-
vocate its superior advantages. It was not essential to be-
come a monk to reach salvation, but who, he writes, " can
attain to it in a safer or nobler way, he who seeks to love God
alone or he who joins the love of the world with the love of
God ? " 2 He loses no opportunity to urge laymen to take the
vow. He appeals to his kinsmen according to the flesh to
become his kinsmen in the Spirit. 3
Bernard was not at peace till he had all his brothers and
his married sister within cloistral walls.
1 Chronicle, VII. 35, where he passes a lengthy panegyric upon monks.
For another pleasing description of a convent and its appointments, see the
account which Ingulph, abbot of Croyland, gives of the burning of his abbey
in 1091. He does not forget to mention that "the very casks full of beer in
the cellar were destroyed." See Maitland, 286-292.
2 Ep., II. 29 ; Migne, 158, 1182.
8 Ep., II. 28 ; Migne, 1180, conspirituales as well as consanguinei. A similar
exhortation he directs to his two uncles. Ep., I. 45. See Hasse, Life of An-
selm, I. 93 sqq. Anselm, however, knew how to make an exception where a
layman was devoting himself entirely to religious works. Visiting the
Countess Matilda, shortly before her death, he recommended her not to take
the veil, as she was doing more good in administering her estates than she
might be able to do behind convent walls. Nevertheless he recommended her
to have a nun's dress within reach so that she might put it on when dying.
316 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Houorius of Autun, in his tract on the cloistral life, 1 after
declaring that it was instituted by the Lord himself, calls
the convent a shore for those tired on the sea, a refuge for
the traveller from the cold and anxieties of the world, a bed
for the weary to rest on, an asylum for those fleeing from the
turmoils of the state, a school for infants learning the rule of
Christ, a gymnasium for those who would fight against
vices, a prison career for the criminal from the broad way till
he goes into the wide hall of heaven, a paradise with differ-
ent trees full of fruits and the delights of Scripture.
The monastic life was the angelic life. "Are ye not
already like the angels of God, having abstained from mar-
riage," exclaimed St. Bernard, in preaching to his monks, 2
and this was the almost universal representation of the age.
Kings and princes desired to be clad in the monastic habit
as they passed into the untried scenes of the future. So Fred-
erick II., foe of the temporal claims of the papacy as he was, is
said to have died in the garb of the Cistercians. So did Roger
II. of Sicily, 1163, and Roger III., 1265. William of Nevers
was clad in the garb of the Carthusian order before he expired.
Louis VI. of France passed away stretched on ashes sprinkled
in the form of a cross. So did Henry, son of Henry II. of Eng-
land, expire, laid on a bed of ashes, 1184. William the Con-
queror died in a priory with a bishop and abbot standing by. 3
It was the custom in some convents, if not in all, to lay out
the monks about to die on the floor, which was sometimes cov-
ered with matting. First they rapped on the death table.
Waiting the approach of death, the dying often had wonder-
ful visions of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. The imag-
ination at such times was very vivid, and the reports which
1 De vita clanstrali, Migne, 172, 1247.
2 Sermo de diversis 37, quomodo non jam nunc estis sicut angeli Dei in
ceeto, a nuptiis penitus abstinentes, etc. Migne, 183, 641. Comp. 184,
703 sq.
8 Ordericus Vitalis, VII. 14. For the case of Hugh of Grantmesnil, see
Order. Vit., VII. 28.
fil. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM. 317
the dying gave on returning for a moment to consciousness
seem to have been generally accepted. 1
The miraculous belonged to the monk's daily food. He
was surrounded by spirits. Visions and revelations occurred
by day and by night. 2 Single devils and devils in bands
were roaming about at all hours in the cloistral spaces, in
the air and on foot, to deceive the unwary and to shake the
faith of the vigilant. The most elaborate and respectable
accounts of monks, so beset, are given by Peter the Venerable
in his work on Miracles, by Csesar of Heisterbach, and Jaco-
bus de Voragine. Csesar's Dialogue of Miracles and Vora-
gine's Grolden Legend are among the most entertaining story-
books ever written. They teem with legends which are
accepted as true. They simply reflect the feeling of the
age, which did not for a moment doubt the constant manifes-
tation of the supernatural, especially the pranks and mis-
demeanors of the evil one and his emissaries.
Peter the Venerable gives a graphic picture of how these
restless foes pulled the bedclothes off from sleeping monks
and, chuckling, carried them to a distance, how they impu-
dently stood by, making fun while the modest monastic
attended to the necessities of nature, 3 and how they threw
the faithful to the ground, as at night they went about
through convent precincts making "holy thefts of prayer." 4
Peter tells a good story of a poor monk who suddenly saw
before him an immense demon standing at his bedside, who
with difficulty bore his weight with his wings. Two others
1 See Caesar of Heisterbach, Dial., XL 6,19, etc. ; pulsata est tabula defunc-
torumpro eo. Strange ed. II. 274, also Hodges, Fountains Abbey, p. 115.
2 Guido said of his brother St. Bernard, " One thing I know and am assured
of by experience that many things have been revealed to him in prayer."
Migne, 185, 262.
8 Eos sibi derisiorie astitisse,
4 Prceterea quosdam nocturnis /ton's, aliis quiescentibus sancta orationum
furta qu&renlcs et eadcm causa claustrum et ecclesiam peragrantes, multis
aliquando terroribus appetebant ita ut in eorum aliquos visibiliter, irruerent
ct ad terram verberando prosternerent. De miraculis, 1. 17 ; Migne, 189, 883.
318 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
appeared at once and exclaimed to the first, " What are you
doing here ? " "I can do nothing," was the reply, " on account
of the protection which is given by the cross and the holy
water and the singing of psalms. I have labored all night
and can do nothing." The two replied, "We have come
from forcing a certain Gaufrid to commit adultery and the
head of a monastery to fornicate with a boy, and you, idle
rogue, do something, too, and cut off the foot of this monk
which is hanging outside his bed." Seizing a pickaxe which
was lying under the bed, the demon struck with all his
might, but the monk with equal celerity drew in his foot and
turned to the back side of the bed and so escaped the blow.
Thereupon the demons took their departure. 1
It is fair to suppose that many of these experiences
were mere fancies of the brain growing out of attacks of
indigestion or of headache, which was a common malady of
convents. 2
The assaults of the devil were especially directed to induce
the monk to abandon his sacred vow. Writing to a certain
Helinand, Anselm mentions the four kinds of assault he was
wont to make. The first was the assault through lust of the
pleasures of the world, when the novice, having recently
entered the convent, began to feel the monotony of its
retired life. In the second, he pushed the question why the
monk had chosen that form of life rather than the life of
the parish priest. In the third, he pestered him with the
question why he had not put off till late in life the assump-
tion of the vow, in the meantime having a good time, and
yet in the end getting all the benefits and the reward of
monkery. And last of all, the devil argued why the monk
had bound himself at all by a vow, seeing it was possible to
serve God just as acceptably without a vow. Anselm an-
1 De mirac., I. 14 ; Migne, 189, 877.
2 Cresar of Heisterbach, Dial., IV. 30, VII. 24. See Kauf mann's ed., IL
87, note.
61. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM. 319
swered the last objection by quoting Ps. 76 : 11, and declar-
ing the vow to be in itself well pleasing to God. 1
It is unfair to any institution to base our judgment of its
merits and utility upon its perversions. The ideal Benedic-
tine and Franciscan monk, we should be glad to believe, was
a man who divided his time between religious exercises and
some useful work, whether it was manual labor or teaching
or practical toil of some other kind. There were, no doubt,
multitudes of worthy men who corresponded to this ideal.
But there was another ideal, and that ideal was one from
which this modern age turns away with unalloyed repugnance.
The pages of Voragine and the other retailers of the con-
ventual life are full of repulsive descriptions which were
believed in their day, and presented not only a morbid view
of life but a view utterly repulsive to sound morality and to
the ideal. A single instance will suffice. In the curious legend
of St. Brandon the Irish saint, whose wanderings on the
ocean have been connected with America, we have it reported
that he found an island whereon was an abbey in which
twenty-four monks lived. They had come from Ireland and
had been living on the island eighty years when they wel-
comed St. Brandon and his twelve companions. In all this
time they had been served from above every week day with
twelve loaves of bread, and on Sabbaths with double that
number, and they had the same monotonous fare each day,
bread and herbs. None of them had ever been sick. They
had royal copes of cloth of gold and went in processions.
They celebrated mass with lighted tapers, and they said even-
song. And in all those eighty years they had never spoken
to one another a single word ! What an ideal that was
to set up for a mortal man ! Saying mass, keeping silence,
going in processions with golden copes day in and day out
for eighty long years, every proper instinct of nature thus
buried, the gifts of God despised, and life turned into an
i Ep., II. 12 ; Migne, 158, 1161 sqq.
320 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
indolent, selfish seclusion ! And yet Voragine, himself an
archbishop, relates that " Brandon wept for joy of their holy
conversation." 1
Gifts of lands to monastic institutions were common, es-
pecially during the Crusades. He who built a convent
was looked upon as setting up a ladder to heaven. 2 Battle
Abbey, or the Abbey of St. Martin of the Place of Battle, as
the full name is, was built by William the Conqueror on the
battle-field of Hastings and finally dedicated by Anselm,1094.
The Vale Royal in Cheshire, the last Cistercian home founded
in England, was established by Edward I. in fulfilment of a
vow made in time of danger by sea on his return from Pales-
tine. He laid the first stone, 1277, and presented the home
with a fragment of the true cross and other relics.
Most of the monastic houses which became famous, began
with humble beginnings and a severe discipline, as Clair-
vaux, Citeaux, Hirschau, and the Chartreuse. The colonies
were planted for the most part in lonely regions, places
difficult of access, in valley or on mountain or in swamp.
The Franciscans and Dominicans set a different example by
going into the cities and to the haunts of population, how-
beit also choosing the worst quarters. The beautiful names
often assumed show the change which was expected to take
place in the surroundings, such as Bright Valley or Olair-
vaux, Good Place or Bon Lieu, the Delights or Les Delices
(near Bourges), Happy Meadow or Felix Pr, Crown of
Heaven or Himmehkrone, Path to Heaven or Voie du Ciel. s
Walter Map, writing in the last part of the twelfth century,
lingers on the fair names of the Cistercian convents, which,
1 Temple Classics ed., vol. VII.
2 Qui claustra construit vel delapsa reparat ccelum ascensurus scalam
sibi facit, quoted by Hurter, IV. 450. The Norman convent Les deux
Amoureux got its name and foundation from the disappointed love of a poor
knight and a young lady whose father refused her to the lover except on
condition of his carrying her to the top of a distant hill. The knight made
the attempt and fell dead on accomplishing the task, she quickly following him.
8 See Montalembert, I. 66.
61. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM. 321
he says, " contain in themselves a divine and prophetic
element, such as House of God, Gate of Salvation," etc. 1
With wealth came the great abbeys of stone, exhibiting
the highest architecture of the day. The establishments of
Citeaux, Cluny, the Grande Chartreuse, and the great houses
of Great Britain were on an elaborate scale. No pains or
money were spared in their erection and equipment. Stained
glass, sculpture, embroidery, rich vestments, were freely
used. 2 A well-ordered house had many parts, chapel, refec-
tory, calefactory, scriptorium for writing, locutorium for
conversation, dormitory, infirmary, hospital. 3 Not a single
structure, but an aggregation of buildings, was required by
the larger establishments. Cluny, in 1245, was able to accom-
modate, at the same time, the pope, the king of France, and
the emperor of Constantinople, together with their retinues.
Matthew Paris says Dunfermline Abbey, Scotland, was
ample enough to entertain, at the same time, three sovereigns
without inconvenience the one to the other. The latest
conveniences were introduced into these houses, the latest
news there retailed. A convent was, upon the whole, a pretty
good place to be in, from the standpoint of worldly well-
being. What the modern club house is to the city, that the
mediaeval convent was apt to be, so far as material appoint-
ments went. In its vaults the rich deposited their valuables.
To its protection the oppressed fled for refuge. There, as at
Westminster, St. Denis, and Dunfermline, kings and princes
chose to be buried. And there, while living, they were
often glad to sojourn, as the most notable place of comfort
and ease they could find on their journeys.
1 Casa Dei, House of God ; Vallis Domini, the Lord's Valley, Portus
Salutis, Gate of Salvation ; Ascende Coelum, Ascent of Heaven ; Lucerna ;
Claravallis, etc. Map, I. 24 ; Wright's ed., p. 40.
2 The luxury and pomp of Cluny called forth the well-known protest of
St. Bernard.
8 See art. Abbey, in " Enc. Brit.," by Dr. Venable, and also Jessopp,
and especially Gasquet, pp. 13-37.
322 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The conventual establishment was intended to be a self-
sufficient corporation, a sort of socialistic community doing
all its own work and supplying all its own stuffs and food. 1
The altruistic principle was supposed to rule. They had
their orchards and fields, and owned their own cattle. Some
of them gathered honey from their own hives, had the fattest
fish ponds, sheared and spun their own wool, made their own
wine, and brewed their own beer. In their best days the
monks set a good example of thrift. The list of minor
officials in a convent was complete, from the cellarer to look
after the cooking and the chamberlain to look after the dress
of the brethren, to the cantor to direct the singing and
the sacristan to care for the church ornaments. In the
eleventh century the custom was introduced of associ-
ating lay brethren with the monasteries, so that in all
particulars these institutions might be completely indepen-
dent. Nor was the convent always indifferent to the poor. 2
But the tendency was for it to centre attention upon itself,
rather than to seek the regeneration and prosperity of those
outside its walls.
Like many other earthly ideals, the ideal of peace, virtue,
and happy contentment aimed at by the convent was not
reached, or, if approached in the first moments of overflow-
ing ardor, was soon forfeited. For the method of monasti-
cism is radically wrong. Here and there the cloister was the
"audience chamber of God." But it was well understood
that convent walls did not of themselves make holy. As,
before, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine had borne
1 The term "convent" primarily means a society of persons. In legal
instruments the usual form in England in the Middle Ages was "the prior
and convent of. " See Jessopp, p. 119, who calls attention to the endless
bickerings and lawsuits in which the mediaeval convents of England were
engaged. For the monk in his monastery, see Taunton, I. 65-96.
a At one time Cluny cared for 17,000 poor. In the famine of 1117 the
convent of Heisterbach, near Cologne, fed 1500 a day. In a time of scarcity
Bernard supported 2000 peasants till the time of harvest.
61. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTIC1SM. 323
testimony to that effect, so now also did different voices.
Ivo of Chartres (d. 1116) condemns the monks who were
filled with the leaven of pride and boast of their ascetic
practices and refers to such passages as 1 Tim. 4 : 8 and
Rom. 14 : 17. The solitudes of the mountains and forests,
he says, will not make men holy, who do not carry with
them rest of soul, the Sabbath of the heart, and eleva-
tion of mind. Peter of Cluny wrote to a hermit that
his separation from the world would not profit unless he
built a strong wall against evil in his own heart, and
that wall was Christ the Saviour. Without this protec-
tion, retirement to solitude, mortifications of the body,
and journeyings in distant lands, instead of availing,
would bring temptations yet more violent. Every mode
of life, lay and clerical, monastic and eremitic, has its
own temptations.
But prosperity was invariably followed by rivalry, arro-
gance, idleness, and low morals. If Otto of Freising gives
unstinted praise to the cloistral communities, his contempo-
rary, Anselm of Havelberg, 1 condemns the laziness and gossip
of the monks within and without the convent walls. Eliza-
beth of Schonau and Hildegard of Bingen, while they looked
upon the monastic life as the highest form of earthly exist-
ence, saw much that was far from ideal in the lives of monks
and nuns. 2 There is a chronique scandaleuse of the convents
as dark and repulsive as the chronique scandaleuse of the
papacy during the pornocracy, and under the last popes of
the Middle Ages. In a letter to Alexander III., asking him
to dissolve the abbey of Grestian, the bishop of the diocese,
Arnulf, spoke of all kinds of abuses, avarice, quarrelling,
1 Hauck, IV. 312.
2 Hauck, IV. 401 sqq., says that there were not many abbesses in Germany
like Hildegard and Elizabeth of Schonau. The complaints of corrupt monks
and nuns came from Saxony, Swabia, Lorraine, the Rhine land, and Switzer-
land. See quotations in Hauck.
324 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
murder, profligacy. William of Malmesbury, 1 writing in
1125, gives a bad picture of the monks of Canterbury. The
convent of Brittany, of which Abifilard was abbot, revealed,
as he reports in his autobiography, a rude and shocking
state of affairs. Things got rapidly worse after the first
fervor of the orders of St. Francis and Dominic was cooled.
Teachers at the universities, like William of St. Amour of
Paris (d. 1270), had scathing words for the monkish inso-
lence and profligacy of his day, as will appear when we con-
sider the mendicant orders. Did not a bishop during the
Avignon captivity of the papacy declare that from personal
examination he knew a convent where all the nuns had car-
nal intercourse with demons ? The revelations of St. Bridget
of Sweden (d. 1375), approved at the councils of Constance
and Basel, reveal the same low condition of monastic virtue.
Nicolas of Clemanges (d. 1440) wrote vigorous protests
against the decay of the orders, and describes in darkest
colors their waste, gluttony, idleness, and profligacy. He
says a girl going into a convent might as well be regarded
as an abandoned woman at once. It was true, as Csesar of
Heisterbach had said in a homily several centuries before,
"Religion brought riches and riches destroyed religion." 2
The institution of monasticism, which had included the
warmest piety and the highest intelligence of the Middle
Ages in their period of glory, came to be, in the period of
their decline, the synonym for superstition and the irrecon-
cilable foe of human progress. And this was because there is
something pernicious in the monastic method of attempting
1 Gfesta pontificum, Rolls Series, p. 70, as quoted by Taunton, I. 22.
William says, " The monks of Canterbury, like all then in England, amused
themselves with hunting, falconry, and horse racing. They loved the rattle
of dice, drink, and fine clothes, and had such a retinue of servants that they
were more like seculars than monks."
a Eeligio peperit divitias, divitioe religionem destruxerunt, Horn. III. 96.
Jessopp, Coming of (he Friars, says that in England the monks of the thir-
teenth century were better than their age, which is not difficult of belief.
62. MOXASTICISM AND THE PAPACY. 325
to secure holiness, and something false in its ideal of holi-
ness. The monks crushed out the heretical sects and
resented the Renaissance. Their example in the period of
early fervor, adapted to encourage thrift, later promoted
laziness and insolence. Once praiseworthy as educators,
they became champions of obscurantism and ignorance.
Chaucer's prior, who went on the pilgrimage to the tomb of
Thomas a Becket, is a familiar illustration of the popular
opinion of the monks in England in the fourteenth century:
" He was a lord full fat and in good point ;
His eyen stepe and rolling in his head
That stemed as a fornice of a led ;
His botes souple, his hors in gret estat,
Now certainly he was a sayre prelat.
He was not pale as a forpined gost ;
A fat swan loved he best of any rost ;
His palfrey was as broune as is a bery."
And yet it would be most unjust to forget the services
which the monastery performed at certain periods in the
history of mediaeval Europe, or to deny the holy purpose of
their founders. The hymns, the rituals, and the manuscripts
prepared by mediseval monks continue to make contribution
to our body of literature and our Church services. An age
like our own may congratulate itself upon its methods of
Church activity, and yet acknowledge the utility of the dif-
ferent methods practised by the Church in another age. We
study the movements of the past, not to find fault with
methods which the best men of their time advocated and
which are not our own, but to learn, and become, if possible,
better fitted for grappling with the problems of our own
time.
62. Monastieism and the Papacy.
Monasticism and the papacy, representing the opposite
extremes of abandonment of the world and lordship over
the world, strange to say, entered into the closest alliance.
The monks came to be the standing army of the popes,
326 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
and were their obedient and valorous champions in the
battles the popes waged with secular rulers. Some of the
best popes were monastic in their training, or their hab-
its, or both. Gregory VII. was trained in the Benedictine
convent on the Aventine, Victor III. proceeded from Monte
Cassino, Urban II. and Pascal II. from Cluny, Adrian IV. from
St. Albans. Eugenius III., the pupil of St. Bernard, con-
tinued after he was made pope to wear the shirt of the
monks of Citeaux next to his body. Innocent III. wrote
the ascetic work, Contempt of the World. 1
One monastic order after the other was founded from
the eleventh to the thirteenth century. The organizing
instinct and a pious impulse dotted Christendom with new
convents or rebuilt old ones from Mt. Carmel to northern
Scotland. 2 Innocent III., after the manner in which the
modern Protestant justifies the denominational distinctions
of Protestantism, likened these various orders to troops clad
in different kinds of armor and belonging to the same army.
" Such variety," he said, "does not imply any division of alle-
giance to Christ, but rather one mind under a diversity of
form." 3 So Peter of Blois writing to the abbot of Eversham
said, that as out of the various strings of the harp, harmony
comes forth, so out of the variety of religious orders comes
unity of service. One should no less expect to find unity
among a number of orders than among the angels or heav-
enly bodies. A vineyard bears grapes both black and white.
A Christian is described in Holy Writ as a cedar, a cypress,
a rose, an olive tree, a palm, a terebinth, yet they form one
group in the Lord's garden. 4
1 Monks were declared by the synod of Nismes, 1096, to be better qualified
for ruling than the secular clergy. Hefele, V. 244.
2 For lists, see Helyot and Dr. Littledale's art. Monachism, "Enc. Brit."
3 Ep., III. 38 ; Migne, 214, 921.
* Ep., 97 ; Migne, 207, 304 sq. Speaking of the variety of expression which
Christ allows, he says in a way worthy of a modern advocate of the Evan-
gelical Alliance, ipsa varietas est uniformitatis causa.
62. MONASTICISM AND THE PAPACY. 327
It was the shrewd wisdom of the popes to encourage the
orders, and to use them to further the centralization of the
ecclesiastical power in Rome. Each order had its own mo-
nastic code, its own distinctive customs. These codes, as
well as the orders, were authorized and confirmed by the
pope, and made, immediately or more loosely, subject to his
sovereign jurisdiction. The mendicant orders of Sts.
Francis and Dominic were directly amenable to the Holy
See. The Fourth Lateran, in forbidding the creation of
new orders, was moved to do so by the desire to avoid con-
fusion in the Church by the multiplication of different rules.
It commanded all who wished to be monks to join one of
the orders already existing. The orders of St. Francis and
St. Dominic, founded in the face of this rule, became the
most faithful adherents the papacy ever had, until the So-
ciety of Jesus arose three centuries later.
The papal favor, shown to the monastic orders, tended to
weaken the authority of the bishops, and to make the papacy
independent of the episcopal system. Duns Scotus went
so far as to declare that, as faith is more necessary for the
world than sacramental ablution in water, so the body of
monks is more important than the order of prelates. The
monks constitute the heart, the substance of the Church. By
preaching they start new life, and they preach without money
and without price. The prelates are paid. 1
Papal privileges and exemptions were freely poured out
upon the orders, especially upon the Mendicants. They
were the pets of the popes. They were practically given
freedom to preach and dispense the sacrament in all places
and at all times, irrespective of the bishops and their juris-
diction. The constant complaints and clashing which re-
sulted, led to endless appeals of monasteries against the
decisions of bishops, which flowed in a constant stream to
Rome, and gave the members of the curia a rare chance to
1 See the remarkable passage quoted by Seeberg, Duns Scotus, 478 sq.
328 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
ply their trade. 1 The convents, by their organization and
wealth, and by the number of their constituents, who were
free to go to Rome and spend an indefinite time there, were
able to harass and to wear out the patience of their oppo-
nents, the bishops, or prolong the cases till their death. 2
The riches, luxury, 3 and power of the great convents be-
came proverbial. In Lorraine and other parts of Europe
they were the leading influence. 4 Abbots often took prece-
dence of bishops, just as the general chapters of the orders, 6
made up of representatives from the farthest East to the
Atlantic, were more imposing than the diocesan and even
the provincial councils.
A little earlier than our period the abbot of Weissenburg
was able to muster as many men as his diocesan bishop of
Spires, and the three abbots of Reichenau, St. Gall, and
Kempten, three times as many as the bishop of the extensive
diocese of Constance. 6 In the twelfth century the abbot
1 Matthew Paris gives one case after the other, as do the other English
chroniclers. Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, says that the history of mediae-
val English monasticism is made up of stories of everlasting litigation. The
convents were always in trouble with their bishops.
2 Bishop Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. 329, says of the English monasteries
that they were the stronghold of papal influence which the pope supported
as a counterpoise to that of the diocesan bishops. For this reason the popes
never made appointments of English abbots, and seldom, if ever, interfered
with the elections by the monks.
8 Dr. Jessopp, p. 155, says of the English monks: "After all, it must be
confessed that the greatest of all delights to the thirteenth-century monks was
eating and drinking. The dinner in a great abbey was clearly a very im-
portant event of the day. It must strike any one who knows much of the
literature of this age, that the weak point in the monastic life of the thir-
teenth century was the gormandizing." He says, however, that little is heard
of drunkenness. The ale brewed in the convents was an important item in
the year's menu. Richard of Marisco, bishop of Durham, gave the Abbey of
St. Albans the tithes of Eglingham, Northumberland, to help the monks
make a better ale, "taking compassion upon the weakness of the convent's
drink."
* See Hauck, III. 493. " Das Miinchthum," he says, " war in Lothringen
die fuhrende Macht."
6 The Fourth Lateran instructed them to meet every three years.
6 Hauck, III. 442.
62. MONASTICISM AND THE PAPACY.
of Fulda claimed precedence over the great archbishop of
Cologne. Beginning with John XVIII. '(1004-1009) the
abbots were not seldom vested with the insignia of the
episcopal office. The English abbots of St. Albans, Bard-
ney, Westminster, and the heads of other English abbeys
were mitred. 1 They were great personages ; they sat in
oecumenical councils ; the bells were rung as they passed ;
they engaged in the hunt, had their horses and armed reti-
nues, and entertained on an elaborate scale. The abbot of St.
Albans ate from a silver plate, and even ladies of rank were
invited to share the pleasures of repasts at English abbeys.
Thus, by wealth and organization and by papal favor, the
monastic orders were in a position to overshadow the epis-
copate. Backed by the pope they bade defiance to bishops,
and in turn they enabled the papacy most effectually to
exercise lordship over the episcopate.
In the struggle with the heretical sects the orders were
the uncompromising champions of orthodoxy, and rendered
the most effective assistance to the popes in carrying out
their policy of repression. In the Inquisition they were the
chief agents which the papacy had. They preached crusades
against the Albigenses and were prominent in the ranks of
the crusaders. In the work of bloody destruction, they were
often in the lead, as was Arnold of Citeaux. Everywhere
from Germany to Spain the leading Inquisitors were monks.
Again, in the relentless struggle of the papacy with princes
and kings, they were always to be relied upon. Here they
did valiant service for the papacy, as notably in the struggle
against the emperor, Frederick II., when they sowed sedition
and organized revolt in Germany and other parts of his
empire.
1 So also were the abbots of Bury St. Edmunds, St. Augustine at Canter-
bury, Croyland, Peterborough, Evesham, Glastonbury, and Gloucester ; but
the abbot of Glastonbury had the precedence, till Adrian IV. gave it to the
abbot of St. Albans.
330 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Once more, as agents to fill the papal treasury, they did
efficient and welcome service to the Holy See. In this
interest they were active all over Europe. The pages of
English chroniclers are filled with protests against them
on the score of their exactions from the people. 1 The pope
treated the orders well, and in turn was well served by them.
They received high favors, and they had the rare grace of
showing gratitude.
The orders of this period may be grouped in five main
families: the family which followed the Benedictine rule, the
family which followed the so-called Augustinian rule, the Car-
melites, the hermit orders of which the Carthusians were the
chief, and the original mendicant orders, 2 the Franciscans and
Dominicans.
63. The Monks of Cluny.
LITERATURE. See lit. vol. IV. pp. 367 and 861; MABILLON: Ann. ord.
S. Bened., III.-V., Paris, 1706-1708; Statuta Cluniacensia, Migne, 189,
1023-47. BERNARD ET BRUEL: Secueil des chartes de Vdbbaye de
Cluni, to 1300, 6 vols. Paris, 1876-93; Consuetudines monastics,
vol. I. ; Consuet. Farfenses, ed. by ALBERS, Stuttgart, 1900. The con-
suetudines are statutes and customs which convents adopted supple-
mentary to the Kules of their orders. These of Farfa, a convent in
Italy, were taken down from Odilo of Cluny and enforced at Farfa.
THE Lives OF ST. BERNARD. C. A. WILKENS : Petrus der Ehrwurdige,
Leipzig, 1857, 277 pp. M. KERKER : Wilhelm der Selige, Abt zu Hir-
schau, Tubingen, 1863. WITTEN : Der Selige Wilhelm, Abt von Hir-
schau, Bonn, 1890. CHAMPLY : Hist, de Vabbaye de Cluny, Macon,
1866. L'HUILLIER: Vie de Hugo, Solesmes, 1887. K. SACKUR: Die
Cluniacenser bis zur Mitte des llten Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. Halle, 1892-
94. H. KUTTER : Wilhelm von St. Thierry, ein Bepresentant der mittel-
alterlichen Frdmmigkeit, Giessen, 1898. MAITLAND: The Dark Ages,
1890, pp. 350-491. HAUCK, vol. III. Art. Hirschau, in Herzog, VIII.
138 sqq.
1 M. Paris and other English chroniclers are continually damning these
Mendicant tax gatherers for their extortion. They were raising money for
the pope in England as early as 1234.
2 Hurter, Innocent ///., IV. 238. Gasquet gives an elaborate list of
the monastic houses of England, pp. 251-318, and an account of the religious
orders represented in England, together with instructive engravings, 211 sqq.
According to Gasquet's list there were more than fifteen hundred conventual
houses in England alone.
63. THE MONKS OF CLUNY. 331
The convent of Cluuy, 1 located twelve miles northwest
of Macon, France, stood at the height of its "influence in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. Founded in 910 by Duke
William of Aquitaine, and directed by a succession of wise
abbots, it gained an eminence, second only to that of Monte
Cassiuo among the monasteries of the West, and became the
nursery of a monastic revival which spread over Europe
from the Adriatic to Scotland.
No religious locality in the Latin church enjoyed a purer
fame than Cluny. Four of its abbots, Odo, Majolus, Odilo,
and Hugh, attained the dignity of canonized saints. Three
popes were among its monks, Gregory VII., 2 Urban II., and
Pascal II., and the antipope Anacletus II. Gelasius II.,
driven from Rome, 1118, took refuge within its walls and
died there lying on ashes and there was buried. The car-
dinals who elected Calixtus II., his successor, met at Cluny.
Kings joined with popes in doing it honor.
The Cluniacs re-enforced the rule of St. Benedict in the
direction of greater austerity. In Lorraine and Germany
the Cluny influence began to be felt after the monastic
reform, led by such men as Abbot Gerhard of Brogne in the
tenth century, had run its course. 3 Such monastic leaders as
William, abbot of St. Benignus at Dijon, Poppo, abbot of
Stablo and Limburg, and William of Hirschau represented
the Benedictine rule and were in full sympathy with Cluny.
Hirschau in the Black Forest became a centre of Cluniac
influence in Southern Germany and one of the chief centres
of intelligence of the age. 4 Its abbot William, 1069-91,
a vigorous disciplinarian and reformer, had received a
thorough scholastic training at the convent of St. Emmeram,
Regensburg. He was in correspondence with Anselm and
1 The town now has four thousand inhabitants.
2 Hauck, III. 596, thinks there is no doubt Gregory was a Cluniac.
Hauck, III. 345 sqq.
4 A list of the German convents adopting the rule of Cluny, or a modified
form of it, is given by Hauck, III. 863.
332 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
visited Gregory VII. in Rome about the year 1075. The
convent became a Gregorian stronghold in the controversy
over the right of investiture. With the rule of Cluny before
him William, in 1077, drew up a similar code for Hirschau,
known as the Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, and introduced
the white dress of the Clnniacs which gave rise to the sneer
that the monks were cleansing their garments instead of
their hearts. 1 Under William the Conqueror the Cluniacs
established themselves in England at Barnstaple. William
thought so well of them that he offered to one of their num-
ber, Hugh, the supervision of the religious affairs of the
realm. The second house in England was the important
establishment, St. Pancras at Lewes, set up by Gundrada and
the Earl of Warren, the Conqueror's son-in-law, 1077. 2
Bermondsey, Wenlock, and Thetford were other important
houses. The Cluniac houses in England were called priories
and their heads priors or deans. 3 Hugo, who held the
position of abbot of Cluny for sixty years, 1048-1109, was
the friend of Gregory VII. and during his administration
Cluny was visited by Urban II., one of Hugo's disciples,
after the adjournment of the synod of Clermont. Hugo
began the erection of the great basilica in 1089, which was
dedicated by Innocent II. in 1131. It was the next greatest
church after St. Peter's in the West.
Under Pontius, the seventh abbot, 1109-22, the current of
1 William erected new buildings at Hirschau to accommodate the large
accessions of monks and founded a scriptorium and a library. Among his
writings was a work on music, de mnsica et tonis. Hirschau was turned
into a Protestant school by Duke Christoph, 1556. Its buildings were
destroyed by the army of Louis XIV. The ruins are among the most ven-
erable monuments of Wurttemberg.
2 Gundrada had visited Cluny. On her tombstone was placed the inscrip-
tion Intulit ecdesiis Anglorum balsama mornm, " She brought the balm of
good manners to the churches of England. " See Stephens, p. 254.
8 When the monasteries were repressed by Henry VIII., there were
thirty-two Cluniac houses in England. Gasquet, 218. Taunton, I. 27,
speaks of thirty-eight houses and three hospitals in London belonging to the
Cluniacs.
63. THE MONKS OF CLUNY. 333
decay ran deep and strong. The convent had become rich
in lands and goods. The plain furnishings had been dis-
carded for rich appointments, and austerity of habits gave
way to self-indulgence. Papal favors were heaped upon
Pontius, and Pascal, his godfather, sent him the dalmatic. 1
Calixtus II. put his own ring on Pontius' finger, gave him
the right to exercise the prerogatives of cardinal, and the
monks of Cluny the right to celebrate service with closed
doors, while the interdict was in force in the diocese.
Pontius gave way completely to worldly ambition, and
assumed the title of archabbot, which was the exclusive
prerogative of the head of the convent of Monte Cassino.
Charges were made against him by the bishop of Macon and,
forced to resign, he set his face towards Jerusalem as a
pilgrim. The pilgrimage did not arouse any feelings of sub-
mission, and on his return the deposed abbot made an effort
to seize his former charge. He forced the convent gates and
compelled the monks to swear him fealty. The sacred ves-
sels of gold and silver were melted down and divided among
the wild intruders. The devastation was then carried be-
yond the convent walls to the neighboring estates. The
anathema was laid upon Pontius by Honorius II., and, sum-
moned to Rome, he was thrown into prison, where he died,
impenitent, 1126. This was one of the most notorious cases
of monastic malversation of office in the Middle Ages.
Peter the Venerable had been elected abbot of Cluny
during Pontius' absence in the East and filled the office for
nearly forty years, 1122-57. He was the friend of St. Ber-
nard, one of the most eminent of the mediaeval monks and one
of the most attractive ecclesiastical personages of his age.
Born in Auvergne and trained in a Cistercian convent, he was
1 The wide-sleeved over-garment stretching to the feet. The mitre, the
distinctive cap of the bishop, was also frequently sent to abbots. One of the
first instances was its presentation by Alexander II. to the abbot of St.
Augustine of Canterbury. The abbot of Fulda received it and also the ring
from Innocent II., 1137.
334 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
only twenty-eight when he was made abbot. Under his
administration Cluny regained its renown. In addition to the
study of the Bible, Peter also encouraged the study of the
classics, a course which drew upon him bitter attacks. He
visited the Cluniac houses abroad in England and Spain.
On the tenth anniversary of his official primacy, Peter wel-
comed two hundred priors and twelve hundred and twelve
members of the order at Cluny. Four hundred and sixty
monks constituted the family of the mother house. No less
than two thousand convents are said to have acknowledged
the Cluniac rule, two of which were at Jerusalem and Mt.
Tabor. In 1246 Peter introduced through a General Chap-
ter seventy six new rules, re-enforcing and elaborating the
Benedictine code already in force. 1 The use of meat was
entirely forbidden except to the weak and infirm, and also
the use of all confections made with honey, spices, and wine.
To the labors of abbot Peter added the activity of an author.
He wrote famous tracts to persuade the Jews and Mohamme-
dans, and against the heretic Peter de Bruys. His last work
was on miracles, 2 in which many most incredible stories of
the supernatural are told as having occurred in convents.
It was while this mild and wise man held office, that Abse-
lard knocked at Cluny for admission and by his hearty permis-
sion spent within its walls the last weary hours of his life.
During Peter's incumbency St. Bernard made his famous
attack against the self-indulgence of the Cluniacs. Robert,
a young kinsman of Bernard, had transferred his allegiance
from the Cistercian order to Cluny. Bernard's request
that he be given up Pontius declined to grant. What his
predecessor had declined to do, Peter did. Perhaps it was
1 See Migne, 189, 1026 sqq. The volume contains Peter's works.
2 Liber duo illustrium miraculorum. A translation of the Koran was
made under Peter's patronage. A revised edition by Bibliander was
published at Basel, 1543. These works are contained in Migne, vol. 189,
507-903, which also prints Peter's letters and sermons, and the hymns
which are ascribed to him.
63. THE MONKS OF CLDNY. 335
not without feeling over the memory of Pontius' action that
Bernard wrote, comparing 1 the simple life, at Citeaux with
the laxity and luxury prevailing at Cluny.
This tract, famous in the annals of monastic controversial
literature, Bernard opened by condemning the lack of
spirituality among his own brethren, the Cistercians. "How
can we," he exclaims, " with our bellies full of beans and our
minds full of pride, condemn those who are full of meat, as
if it were not better to eat on occasion a little fat, than be
gorged even to belching with windy vegetables! " He then
passed to an arraignment of the Cluniacs for self-indulgence
in diet, small talk, and jocularity. At meals, he said, dish
was added to dish and eggs were served, cooked in many
forms, and more than one kind of wine was drunk at a
sitting. The monks preferred to look on marble rather
than to read the Scriptures. Candelabra and altar cloths
were elaborate. The art and architecture were excessive.
The outward ornamentations were the proof of avarice and
love of show, not of a contrite and penitent heart. He had
seen one of them followed by a retinue of sixty horsemen
and having none of the appearance of a pastor of souls. He
charged them with taking gifts of castles, villas, peasants,
and slaves, and holding them against just complainants. 2 In
spite of these sharp criticisms Peter remained on terms of
intimacy with Bernard. He replied without recrimina-
tion, and called Bernard the shining pillar of the Church.
A modification of the rule of St. Benedict, when it was
prompted by love, he pronounced proper. But he and
Bernard, he wrote, belonged to one Master, were the soldiers
of one King, confessors of one faith. As different paths
lead to the same land, so different customs and costumes,
with one inspiring love, lead to the Jerusalem above,
1 Apologia ad Guillelmum. Migne, 182, 895-918.
2 To this charge Peter replied that such property was much better in the
hands of the monks than of wild laymen.
336 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the mother of us all. Cluniacs and Cistercians should ad-
monish one another if they discerned errors one in the other,
for they were pursuing after one inheritance and following
one command. He called upon himself and Bernard to
remember the fine words of Augustine, "have charity, and
then do what you will," habe charitatem et fac quicquid vis. 1
What could be more admirable ? Where shall we go for a
finer example of Christian polemics ?
After Peter's death the glory of Cluny declined. 2 Six
hundred years later, 1790, the order was dissolved by the
French Government. The Hotel de Cluny, the Cluniac house
in Paris, once occupied by the abbot, now serves as a museum
of Mediaeval Art and Industry under the charge of the
French government. 3
The piety of Western Christendom owes a lasting debt to
Cluny for the hymn "Jerusalem the Golden," taken from the
de contemptu mundi written by Bernard of Cluny, a contem-
porary of Peter the Venerable and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. 4
Jerusalem the Golden,
With milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice opprest.
I know not, 'oh, I know not
What social joys are there,
What radiancy of glory,
What light beyond compare.
l Ep., 1.28; Migne, 189, 156. A number of Peter's letters to Bernard
are preserved, all of them laying stress upon the exercise of brotherly affec-
tion. In strange contrast to his usual gentleness, stands his sharp arraign-
ment of the Jews. See 77 on Missions to the Jews.
2 The election of the abbot was taken out of the hands of the monks. Dur-
ing the Avignon captivity the popes, and later the French king, claimed the
right to appoint that official. The Guises had the patronage of the abbey for
nearly a hundred years. In 1627 Richelieu was appointed abbot.
8 The Hotel de Cluny was a stopping place for distinguished people.
There Mary, sister of Henry VIII. of England, resided during her widowhood
and there James V. of Scotland was married, 1537, to Madeleine, daughter of
Francis I. The municipality of Cluny purchased the abbey buildings and in
part dismantled them.
4 See Schaft, Christ in Song, and Julian, Hymnology.
64. THE CISTERCIANS. 337
64. The Cistercians.
LITERATURE. Exordium parvum ordinis Cisterciensice, Migne, 166. Ex-
ordium magnum ord. Cisterc., by CONRAD OF EBERBACH, d. 1220; Migne,
185. MANRIQCEZ : Ann. ord. Cisterc., 4 vols. Lyons, 1642. MABIL-
LON : Ann. ord. St. Benedict, Paris, 1706-1708. P. GUIGNARD: Les
monuments primitifs de la regie Cistercienne, publics cfapres les manu-
scripts de Vabbaye de Citeaux, Dijon, 1878, pp. cxii. 656. PIERRE LE
NAIN: Essai de Vhist. de Vordre de Citeaux, Paris, 1696. J. H. NEWMAN :
The Cistercian Saints of England, London, 1844. FRANZ WINTER: Die
Cistercienser des nord-ostlichen Deutschlands bis zum Auftreten der
Bettelorden, 3 vols. Gotha, 1868-1871. L. JANAUSCHEK: Origines Cister-
ciensium, Vienna, 1877. B. ALBERS: Untersmhungen zu den altesten
Mdnchsgewohnheiten. Ein Beitrag zur Benedictinerordensregel der
X-XIIten Jahrhunderte, Munich, 1905. SHARPE : Architecture of the
Cisterc., London, 1874. Cisterc. Abbeys of Yorkshire, in " Fraser's
Mag.," September, 1876. DEAN HODGES: Fountains Abbey, The Story
of a Mediaeval Monastery, London, 1904. DEUTSCH : art. .Cister-
cienser, in Herzog, IV. 116-127 ; art. Harding, in "Diet. Natl. Biogr.,"
XXIV. 333-335 ; the Biographies of St. Bernard. For extended lit. see
the work of JANAUSCHEK.
With the Cluniac monks the Cistercians divide the dis-
tinction of being the most numerous and most useful monas-
tic order of the Middle Ages, 1 until the Mendicant Friars
arose and distanced them both. They are Benedictines and
claim the great name of St. Bernard, and for that reason are
often called Bernardins in France. Two popes, Eugenius III.
and Benedict XII., proceeded from the order. Europe owes
it a large debt for its service among the half-barbarian peasants
of Eastern France, Southern Germany, and especially in the
provinces of Northeastern Germany. Its convents set an
example of skilled industry in field and garden, in the train-
ing of the vine, the culture of fish, the cultivation of orchards,
and in the care of cattle. 2
1 Cardinal Hergenrb'ther says, " The Cistercians reached a much higher dis-
tinction than the order of Cluny." Kirchengesch., II. 351.
2 In England they were careful breeders of horses (Giraldus Cambrensis,
Speculum ecclesice, IV. 130, and Brewer's Preface, IV. 24) and were noted
for their sheep and wool. Their wool was a popular article of royal taxation.
John seized a year's product to meet the payment of Richard's ransom.
M. Paris, Luard's ed., II. 399. Henry III. forbade the monks to sell their
z
338 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The founder, Robert Molesme, was born in Champagne,
1024, and after attempting in vain to introduce a more rigor-
ous discipline in several Benedictine convents, retired to the
woods of Molesme and in 1098 settled with twenty compan-
ions on some swampy ground near Citeaux, 1 twelve miles
from Dijon. Here Eudes, duke of Burgundy, 2 erected a
building, which went at first by the name of the New Mon-
astery, novum monasterium.
Alberic, Robert's successor, received for the new establish-
ment the sanction of Pascal II., and placed it under the special
care of the Virgin. She is said to have appeared to him in
the white dress of the order. 3
Under the third abbot, Stephen Harding, an Englishman,
known as St. Stephen, who filled the office twenty-five years
(1110-1134), 4 the period of prosperity set in. In 1113 Ber-
nard with thirty companions entered the convent, and the
foundation of four houses followed, 1113-1115, La Ferte,
Potigny, Clairvaux, and Morimond, which continued to
have a rank above all the other Cistercian houses subse-
quently founded.
New houses followed rapidly. In 1130 there were 30
Cistercian convents, in 1168, 288. A rule was framed for-
bidding the erection of new establishments, but without
avail, and their number in the fourteenth century had risen
wool. Henry II., 1257, taxed it heavily, etc. M. Paris, IV. 324, V. 610. See
Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. 541, II. 181, 200.
1 The name comes from the stagnant pools in the neighborhood.
2 He died on a Crusade. At his request his bones were taken back and
buried at Citeaux, which became the burial place of his successors.
8 See Helyot, V. 404. According to Hauck, IV. 337, the Cistercians were
the first to introduce into Germany the exaggerated cult of the Virgin.
4 He was a man of much administrative ability. William of Malmesbury,
IV. 1, speaks of Stephen as " the original contriver of the whole scheme, the
especial and celebrated ornament of our times." It is related that on a journey
to Rome, and before entering Citeaux, he repeated the whole Psalter. Basil
had enjoined the memorizing of the Psalter. According to the biographer of
abbot Odo of Cluny, the monks of Cluny daily repeated 138 Psalms. Mail-
land, p. 375.
64. THE CISTERCIANS. 339
to 738. l The order, though never the recipient of such priv-
ileges as were dispensed to Cluny, was highly honored by
some of the popes. Innocent III. showed them special favor,
and promised them the precedence in audiences at Rome. 2
The carta charitatis, the Rule of Love, the code of the
Cistercians, dates from Harding's administration and was
confirmed by Calixtus II. 1119. It commanded the strict
observance of the Benedictine Rule, but introduced a new
method of organization for the whole body. In contrast to
the relaxed habits of the Cluniacs, the mode of life was made
austerely simple. The rule of silence was emphasized and flesh
forbidden, except in the case of severe illness. The conven-
tual menu was confined to two dishes. All unnecessary adorn-
ment of the churches was avoided, so that nothing should re-
main in the house of God which savored of pride or superfluity.
The crosses were of wood till the statutes of 1157 allowed
them to be of gold. Emphasis was placed upon manual
labor as an essential part of monastic life. A novice at
Clairvaux writes enthusiastically of the employment of the
monks, whom he found with hoes in the gardens, forks and
rakes in the meadows, sickles in the fields, and axes in the
forest. 3 In some parts they became large landowners and
crowded out the owners of small plats. 4 At a later period
they gave themselves to copying manuscripts. 5 Their
schools in Paris, Montpellier (1252), Toulouse (1281), Oxford
(1282), Metz, arid other places were noted, but with the ex-
ception of Bernard they developed no distinguished School-
men or writers as did the mendicant orders. 6 They were not
1 Janauschek has shown that 1800, the number formerly given, is an
exaggeration. 2 Hurter, IV. 184 sqq.
3 Peter de Roya, Ep. St. Bernard, 492 ; Migne, 182, 711.
* Hauck, IV. 336.
6 One of the regulations of the chapter of 1134 enjoined silence in the
scriptorium. In omnibus scriptoriis ubicunque ex consuetudine monachi
scribunt silentium teneatur sicut in claustro. Maitland, p. 450.
6 The Cistercians are said to have produced the first Swedish translation of
the Bible. Hurter, IV. 180.
340 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
given to the practice of preaching or other spiritual service
among the people. 1 The general chapter, 1191, forbade
preaching in the parish churches and also the administration
of baptism. The order became zealous servants of the pope
and foes of heresy. The abbot Arnold was a fierce leader
of the Crusades against the Albigenses.
Following the practice introduced at the convent of Hir-
schau, the Cistercians constituted an adjunct body of laymen,
or conversi. 2 They were denied the tonsure and were de-
barred from ever becoming monks. The Cistercian dress
was at first brown and then white, whence the name Gray
Monks, grisei. The brethren slept on straw in cowl and
their usual day dress.
The administration of the Cistercians was an oligarchy as
compared with that of the Cluniacs. The abbot of Cluny
was supreme in his order, and the subordinate houses received
their priors by his appointment. Among the Cistercians each
convent chose its own head. At the same time the com-
munity of all the houses was insured by the observance of
the Rule of 1119, and by yearly chapters, which were the
ultimate arbiters of questions in dispute. The five earliest
houses exercised the right of annual visitation, which was
performed by their abbots over five respective groups. A
General Council of twenty-five consisted of these five abbots
and of four others from each of the five groups. The
General Chapters were held yearly and were attended by
all the abbots within a certain district. Those at remote
distances attended less frequently: the abbots from Spain,
every two years; from Sweden and Norway, every three
1 St. Bernard declared that the office of the monk is not to preach, but to
be an ascetic, and that the town should be to him as a prison, and solitude as
paradise, quod monachus non hnbet docentis sed plangentis officium,
quippe cm oppidum career esse debet et solitudo paradisus. A monk who
goes out into the world, he said, turns things round and makes his solitude
a prison and the town paradise. Ep., 365 ; Migne, 182, 670.
2 Called at Hirschau also barbati, the bearded.
64. THE CISTERCIANS. 341
years; from Scotland, Ireland, Hungary, and Greece, every
four years ; and from the Orient, every seven years. It
became a proverb that "The gray monks were always on
their feet."
The Cistercians spread over all Western Europe. The
Spanish orders of Alcantara and Calatrava adopted their rule.
The first Cistercian house in Italy was founded 1120 at Tigl-
ieto, Liguria, and in Germany at Altenkamp about 1123. 1
In England the order got a foothold in 1128, when William
Gifford, bishop of Winchester, founded the house of Waverley
in Surrey. 2 Among the prominent English houses were,
Netley near Southampton, founded by Henry III., Rivaulx,
and Fountains, 3 the greatest abbey in Northern England. In
1152 there were fifty Cistercian houses in England. 4 Melrose
Abbey, Scotland, also belonged to this order.
Of all the Cistercian convents, Port Royal has the most
romantic history. Founded in 1204 by Mathilda de Gar-
lande in commemoration of the safe return of her husband
from the Fourth Crusade, it became in the seventeenth cen-
tury a famous centre of piety and scholarship. Its association
with the tenets of the Jansenists, and the attacks of Pascal
upon the Jesuits, brought on its tragic downfall. The
famous hospice, among the snows of St. Gotthard, is under
the care of St. Bernard monks.
In the thirteenth century the power of the Cistercians
yielded to the energy of the orders of St. Francis and St.
1 See Hauck, IV. 325 sqq., for the names of the German houses.
2 Shortly after Harding's death, William of Malmesbury, IV. I, Rolls ed.,
II. 385, describes the order "as a model for all monks, a mirror to the studi-
ous, and a goad to the slothful." Gasquet, p. 221, says that three-fourths
of the hundred Cistercian houses suppressed by Henry VIII. were founded in
the 12th century.
8 The ruins of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire is described by Motley
(correspondence, I. 359) as " most picturesque, and the most exquisite, and
by far the most impressive ruins I have ever seen, and much more beautiful
than Melrose Abbey." For the ground plan, see Dr. Venables, art. Abbey, in
" Enc. Brit.," I. 19, and photographs of the walls (as they are). Hodges.
4 Stephens, Hist, of Engl. Church, p. 261.
342 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Dominic. It was not a rare thing for them to pass over to
the newer monastic organizations. 1 In 1335 Benedict XIII.
enacted regulations in the interest of a severe discipline,
and in 1444 Eugenius IV. felt called upon to summon the
General Chapter to institute a rigid reform. With the
Reformation many of the houses were lost to the order in
England and Germany. The Trappists started a new
movement towards severity within the order. The French
Revolution suppressed the venerable organization in 1790.
The buildings at Citeaux, presided over by a succession of
sixty-two abbots, are now used as a reformatory institution.
65. St. Bernard of Clairvauz.
Virtus in pace acquiritur, in pressura probatur, approbatur in victoria,
St. Bernard. 2
LITERATURE. The Works of St. Bernard, ed. by MABILLON, 2 vols. Paris,
1667, reprinted with additions in Migne, 182-185, Engl. trans, by SAML.
J. BALES, London, 1889, 2 vols. Xenia Sernardina, a Memorial ed.
by Cistercian convents of Austro-Hungary, 6 vols. Vienna, 1891.
LEOP. JANAUSCHEK : Bibliographia Sernardina, Vienna, 1891. The
tract De consideration, trans, by Bp. J. H. REINKENS, Minister, 1870.
BIOGRAPHIES. Contemporary, in Migne, vol. 185 : 1. the so-called Vitaprima,
in six parts, by WILLIAM OF THIERRY (while Bernard was still living),
GAUFRID OF CLAIRVAUX, and ERNALD, abbot of Bona Vallis ; II. the Vita
secunda, by ALANUS OF AUXERRE ; III. Fragments collected by GAUFRID ;
IV. a Life, by JOHN THE HERMIT, full of legendary materials. Modern,
by NEANDER, Berlin, 1813, 1848, 1868, new ed. with Introd. and Notes,
by * S. M. DEUTSCH, 2 vols. Gotha, 1889. Engl. trans. London, 1843.
ELLENDORF, Essen, 1837. ABBE T. RATISBONNE, 2 vols. Paris,
1841, etc. Full of enthusiasm for Bernard as a saint. * J. C. MORI-
SON, London, 1863; rev. ed. 1868, 1884. Cool and impartial. CAPE-
FIGUE, Paris, 1866. CHEVALLIER, 2 vols. Lille, 1888. HOFMEISTER,
Berlin, 1891. BALES (Rom. Cath.), London, 1891. * RICHARD S.
STORRS, 1892, stimulating and eloquent. *L' ABBE E. VACANDARD, 2 vols.
Paris, 1895, 2d ed. 1897. A thorough study following a number of
1 As early as 1223 such Cistercians are called fugitives by the General
Chapter. Contrasting the Cistercians with the Dominicans, Matthew Paris,
an. 1256, Luard's ed., V. 529, says of them, " They do not wander through the
cities and towns, but they remain quietly shut up within the walls of their
domiciles, obeying their superiors."
2 Ep., 126 ; Migne, 182, 271.
65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 343
previous presentations in magazines and brochures. J. LAGARDERE,
Besangon, 1900. DEUTSCH, art. Bernhard, in Herzog, II. 623-639. Also
H. KUTTER : Wilhelm von St. Thierry, ein Kepresenlant der mittelalter-
lichen Frommigkeit, Giessen, 1898. For other literature see chapters,
Mystical Theology and Hymns.
St. Bernard, 1090-1153, founder and abbot of the convent
of Clairvaux, was the model monk of the Middle Ages, the
most imposing figure of his time, and one of the best
men of all the Christian centuries. He possessed a mag-
netic personality, a lively imagination, a rich culture, and
a heart glowing with love for God and man. Although
not free from what might now be called ecclesiastical
rigor, he was not equalled by any of his contemporaries in
services for the Church and man. " In his countenance," ac-
cording to the contemporary biographer who knew him well,
" there shone forth a pureness not of earth but of heaven,
and his eyes had the clearness of an angel's and the mild-
ness of a dove's eyes." 1 There is no spotless saint in this
world, and Bernard was furthest from claiming perfection,
but he came as near the mediaeval ideal of ascetic holiness
as any man of his century. 2
In the twelfth century there were at least two other eccle-
siastics of the first order of genius, Anselm and Innocent III.
The former passed away a few years after the century
opened. Innocent began his papal reign two years before
it went out. Anselm has pre-eminence as a profound
theological thinker and dialectician. Innocent ruled the
world, as pope never ruled it before or since. Between the
two fall the intellectual genius and activity of Bernard,
1 Vita prima, III. 1 ; Migne, 185, 303. Gaufrid, the biographer, presents an
elaborate description of his qualities. He says, Bernard was magnanimus
in fide, longanimis in spe, profusus in charitate, summus in humilitate, prce-
cipuus in pietate. Alanus in Vita secunda, XVII. 47, Migne, 185, 497,
gives this high praise, humanissimus in affcctione, magis tamen forte in fide.
2 This was the judgment of Philip Schaff, Literature and Poetry, p. 282.
Bernard not seldom used in his letters such expressions as this, Nonne ego
puer parvulus, Am I not as a little child? Ep., 365 ; Migne, 182, 570.
344 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
combining some of the qualities of Anselm and Innocent.
As a mystical theologian he is allied to Anselm, whose Medi-
tations give him a high place in the annals of devotional
literature. And Bernard was also a statesman, although
he did not attain the eminence of Innocent and shrank from
participation in public affairs which were so much to the
taste of the great pope. Contemporary with himself was
Peter Abselard, whose brilliant mind won for him enviable
fame as a teacher and thinker. But Abaelard never won
the confidence of his own age, and is not to be compared
with Bernard in moral dignity.
By preference a monk, Bernard figured, with almost equal
prominence, in the history of the papacy, the Crusades,
mysticism, monasticism, and hymnology. In the annals of
monasticism, the pulpit, and devotional literature he easily
occupies a place in the front rank. He was called the
"honey-flowing doctor," doctor mellifluus. Twenty years
after his death he was canonized by Alexander III. as " shin-
ing pre-eminently in his own person by virtue of sanctity and
religion, and in the whole Church by the light of his doctrine
and faith." 1 Pius VIII., in 1830, admitted him to the select
company of the doctors of the Church. Both Calvin and
Luther, who ridiculed the Schoolmen as a body, held him in
high regard. 2
1 The document is given in Migne, 185, 622 sq.
2 Calvin says, Instt. IV. 2, 11, "in his de consideratione Bernard speaks
as though the very truth itself were speaking." Luther, directed to Bernard
by Staupitz, studied his works, and often appealed to his words. Kostlin,
Life of Luther, I. 81. He praised Bernard for not having depended upon
his monk's vow, but upon the free grace of Christ for salvation. Denifle,
Luther und Lutherthum, I. 66-64, tries to make out that Luther falsified
when he represented Bernard as putting aside, as it were, his monastic pro-
fession as a thing meritorious. Luther, in an animated passage, declared that
at the close of his life Bernard had exclaimed, tempus meum perdidi quia
perdite vixi, "I have lost my time because I have lived badly, but there is
one thing that consoles me, a contrite and broken heart Thou dost not
despise." You see, said Luther, how Bernard hung his cowl on the hook
and returned to Christ. It seems, according to Denifle, that the two clauses
65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 345
Bernard was descended from a noble family of Burgundy,
and was born at Fontaines near Dijon. He was one of seven
children, six of whom were sons. His mother, Aletha, like
Nonna and Monica, was a deeply pious woman and planted
in the son the seeds of religious faith. 1 Carried away for a
time with enthusiasm for scholastic learning, the son was
overwhelmed, while on a lonely journey, with religious im-
pressions, and, entering a chapel, resolved to dedicate himself
wholly to God. He entered the convent of Citeaux, two of
his brothers following him at once, and the rest later into
the monastic life.
This was in 1113 that Bernard cast in his lot with the
Cistercians, and the event proved to be an epoch in the his-
tory of that new community. His diet was bread and milk
or a decoction of herbs. 2 He devoted himself to the severest
asceticism till he was reduced almost to a shadow, and his
feet became so swollen from standing at devotions as almost
to refuse to sustain his body. In after years, Bernard re-
proached himself for this intemperate self -mortification which
unfitted his body for the proper service of the Lord. But
his spirit triumphed over his physical infirmities. 3 While
he was engaged in work in the fields, it soared aloft to
heavenly things. He studied the Scriptures and the Fathers.
were not uttered at the same time by Bernard. The exclamation, "I have
lost my life," was made in a sermon on the Canticles, Migne, 183, 867, and
the other part was said by Bernard in a time of severe sickness. This is
not the place to take up Denifle's charge that Luther was playing fast and
loose with Bernard's utterances to make out a case, but it is sufficient to say
that Luther was intending to emphasize that Bernard depended solely upon
grace for salvation, and this position is justified by expressions enough in
Bernard's writings.
1 Her piety is greatly praised by contemporaries. The abbot of St. Benig-
nus at Dijon begged her body for his convent. William of St. Thierry said
of her that " she ruled her household in the fear of God, was urgent in works
of mercy, and brought up her sons in all obedience," enutriens filios in omni
disciplina. Vita prima, I. 1.
2 Migne, 185, 250.
3 Virtus vehementius in inflrmitate ejus refulgens, etc. Vita prima, VIII.
41; Migne, 185, 251.
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
His writings betray acquaintance with the classics and he
quotes Seneca, Ovid, Horace, and other classical writers.
The works of nature also furnished him with lessons, and he
seems to have approached the modern estimate of nature as
an aid to spiritual attainment. " Thou wilt find," he wrote, 1
" something greater in the woods than in books. The trees
and rocks will teach thee what thou canst not hear from
human teachers. And dost thou not think thou canst suck
honey from the rocks and oil from the hardest stones ! "
This seems to lose its weight in view of what one of
Bernard's biographers relates. Bernard travelled the whole
day alongside the Lake of Geneva, and was so oblivious to
the scenery that in the evening, at Lausanne, he was obliged
to inquire what they had seen on the journey. We are
probably justified in this case in ascribing an ascetic purpose
to the monkish writer. 2
In 1115, in company with twelve companions, Bernard
founded Clairvaux Claravallis, Clear Valley in a locality
which before had been called Wormwood, and been the seat
of robbers. William of St. Thierry, Bernard's close friend
and biographer, is in doubt whether the name vallis absinthi-
alis came from the amount of wormwood which grew there
or from the bitter sufferings sustained by the victims of the
robbers. 3 But he does not fail to draw the contrast between
1 To an Englishman, Henry Murdoch, Ep., 106; Migne, 182, 242. Aliquid
nmplius invenies in silvis quam in libris. Ligna et lapides docebunt te, quod
a magistris audire non possis. An non pittas posse te sugere mel de petra
olfumque de saxo durissimo ? etc. The words remind us of Shakespeare's
oft-quoted lines :
books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
2 Vita prima, III. 2; Migne, 185, 306. A mediaeval description of the
beauties of nature is a rare thing. The Canticle of the Sun, by Francis
d'Assisi, is an exception. Otto of Freising accompanied Frederick Barbarossa
on his journey to Rome to receive the imperial crown, and speaks with much
enthusiasm about the military display of the Germans, but had not a word
to say about the glories of Rome or its monuments. See Fisher, Med. Empire,
II- 229. s vita prima, I. 5.
65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 347
the acts of violence for which the place was once notorious,
and the peace which reigned in it after Bernard and his
companions set up their simple house. Then he says, " the
hills began to distil sweetness, and fields, before sterile,
blossomed and became fat under the divine benediction." 1
In this new cloistral retreat Bernard preached, wrought
miracles, wrote innumerable letters, 2 received princes and
high ecclesiastics. From there he went forth on errands of
high import to his age. The convent soon had wide fame,
and sent off many shoots. 3
William of St. Thierry 4 draws an attractive picture of
Clairvaux, which at this long distance compels a feeling of
rest. William says :
I tarried with him a few days, unworthy though I was, and whichever
way I turned iny eyes, I marvelled and thought I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, and also the old pathways of the Egyptian monks, our fathers,
marked with the recent footsteps of the men of our time left in them. The
golden ages seemed to have returned and revisited the world there at Clair-
vaux. ... At the first glance, as you entered, after descending the hill, you
could feel that God was in the place ; and the silent valley bespoke, in the
simplicity of its buildings, the genuine humility of the poor of Christ dwelling
there. The silence of the noon was as the silence of the midnight, broken
only by the chants of the choral service, and the sound of garden and field
implements. No one was idle. In the hours not devoted to sleep or prayer,
the brethren kept busy with hoe, scythe, and axe, taming the wild land and
clearing the forest. And although there was such a number in the valley,
yet each seemed to be a solitary. 5
1 Apud vallem quce prius dicebatur vallis absinthialis et amara, coeperunt
monies stillare dulcedinem, etc. Vita prima, XIII. 61 ; Migne, 185, 260. See
also Alanus, Vita secunda, VI. 18.
2 His letters include long compositions abounding in allegory and moral-
izations and brief pithy statements, which approach the subject in hand with
modern directness. Alanus gives a list of churchmen high in position going
forth from Clairvaux. Vita secunda, XX. 54 ; Migne, 185, 154.
3 Vacandard, vol. II., Appendix, gives a list of sixty-eight convents founded
by Bernard.
4 William was born at Liege about 1085, and died about 1149. In 1119 he
was made abbot of the Cistercian convent of Thierry near Rheims. We
meet him frequently in the company of Bernard, and in the controversies
over Absslard and Gilbert of Poitiers.
5 Vita prima, I. 7 ; Migne, 182, 268.
348 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Here is another description by the novice, Peter de Roy a,
writing from Clairvaux : l
"Its monks have found a Jacob's ladder with angels upon it, descend-
ing to provide help to the bodies of the monks that they fail not in the way,
and also ascending, and so controlling the monks' minds that their bodies
may be glorified. Their song seems to be little less than angelic, but much
more than human. ... It seems to me I am hardly looking upon men
when I see them in the gardens with hoe, in the fields with forks and rakes
and sickles, in the woods with axe, clad in disordered garments but that I
am looking on a race of fools without speech and sense, the reproach of
mankind. However, my reason assures me that their life is with Christ in
the heavens."
Bernard, to whom monastic seclusion was the highest ideal
of the Christian life, bent his energies to induce his friends
to take the vow. Its vigils and mortifications were the best
means for developing the two cardinal virtues of love and
humility. 2 His persistent effort to persuade his sister Hum-
blina shocks our sense of what is due to the sacred ties of
nature, but was fully justified by the examples of St. An-
thony and Benedict of Nursia. Humblina was married to a
husband of rank and had a family. When she appeared
one day at Clairvaux, Bernard refused to go down to see
her, for he had insisted before on her taking the veil and
she had declined. Now she finally communicated to him
the bitter cry, " If my brother despises my body, let not the
servant of God despise my soul." 3 Bernard then heeded and
again called upon her to renounce the vanities of the world
and lay aside the luxuries of dress and ornaments. Return-
ing to her household, Humblina, after two years, and with
her husband's consent, retired to the convent of Juilly,
where she spent the remainder of her days.
1 The genuineness of the letter is questionable. Ep,, 492; Migne, 182,
706-713.
2 Ep., 142; Migne, 182, 297.
8 Si despicit frater meus carnem meam, ne despiciat servus Dei animam
meam. Veniat, prcecipiat, quicquid prceceperit, facere parata sum. Vita
secunda, VII. 2; Migne, 183, 482. Was ever sister's appeal more tender ?
65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 349
Bernard's attack upon the conventual establishment of
Cluny was born of mistaken zeal. If of the -two men Peter
the Venerable appears to much better advantage in that con-
troversy, it was different when it came to the treatment of
the Jews. Here Peter seems to have completely laid aside
his mild spirit, while Bernard displays a spirit of humaneness
and Christian charity far beyond his age. In the contro-
versy with Abselard, a subject which belongs to another
chapter, the abbot of Clairvaux stands forth as the church-
man who saw only evil in views which did not conform
strictly to the doctrinal system of the Church.
Bernard was a man of his age as well as a monastic. He
fully shared the feelings of his time about the Crusades. In
1128, at the Synod of Troyes, his voice secured recognition
for the Knight Templars, "the new soldiery." The ignoble
failure of the Second Crusade, which he had preached with
such warmth, 1146, called forth from him a passionate la-
ment over the sins of the Crusaders, and he has given us a
glimpse into the keen pangs he felt over the detractions that
undertaking called forth. 1 The ill issue was not his fault.
He himself was like Moses, who led the people towards the
Holy Land and not into it. The Hebrews were stiff-necked.
Were not the Crusaders stiff-necked also and unbelieving,
who in their hearts looked back and hankered after Europe?
Is it any wonder that those who were equally guilty should
suffer a like punishment with the Israelites ? To the taunt
that he had falsely represented himself as having delivered
a message from God in preaching the Crusade, he declared
the testimony of his conscience was his best reply. Euge-
nius, too, could answer that taunt by what he had seen and
heard. But, after all was said, it was a great honor to have
the same lot with Christ and suffer being unjustly con-
demned (Ps. 69 : 9).
When, at a later time, Bernard was chosen at Chartres to
1 De consideratione, II. 1; Migne, 182, 743.
350 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
lead another Crusade, the choice was confirmed by the pope,
but the Cistercians refused to give their consent. 1
In the reigns of Innocent II. and Eugenius III. Bernard
stood very near the papacy. He did more than any other
single individual to secure the general recognition of Inno-
cent II. as the rightful pope over his rival, Anacletus II.
He induced the king of France to pronounce in favor of In-
nocent. Bent on the same mission, he had interviews with
Henry I. of England at Chartres, and the German emperor
at Liege. He entertained Innocent at Clairvaux, and ac-
companied him to Italy. It was on this journey that so pro-
found were the impressions of Bernard's personality and
miracles that the people of Milan fell at his feet and would
fain have compelled him to ascend the chair of St. Ambrose.
On his third journey to Rome, in 1138, 2 Bernard witnessed
the termination of the papal schism. In a famous debate
with Peter of Pisa, the representative of Anacletus, he used
with skill the figure of the ark for the Church, in which
Innocent, all the religious orders, and all Europe were found
except Anacletus and his two supporters, Roger of Sicily
and Peter of Pisa. But an attempt, he said, was being made
to build another ark by Peter of Pisa. If the ark of Inno-
cent was not the true ark, it would be lost and all in it.
Then would the Church of the East and the Church of the
West perish. France and Germany would perish, the Span-
iards and the English would perish, for they were with In-
nocent. Then Roger, alone of all the princes of the earth,
would be saved and no other. 3
1 Bernard refers to this election in a letter to Eugenius, Ep., 256. " Who
am I," he writes, "to establish camps and march at the head of armed men ? "
2 It was on this journey that St. Bernard performed the miracle which
has a humorous side. While he was crossing the Alps, the devil broke one
of his carriage wheels. Bernard repaired the damage by commanding the
devil to take the place of the broken wheel, which he did, and the wagon
moved on again to the traveller's comfort.
3 Vitaprima, II. 7, 45; Migne, 185, 294 sq.
65. ST. BEKXAliD OF CLALKVAUX. 351
Eugenius III. had been an inmate of Clairvaux and one
of Bernard's special wards. The tract de consideratione l
which, at this pope's request, Bernard prepared on the papal
office and functions is unique in literature, and, upon the
whole, one of the most interesting treatises of the Middle
Ages. Vacandard calls it " an examination, as it were, of
the pope's conscience." 2 Here Bernard exhorts his spirit-
ual sou, whom he must address as "most holy father," and
whom he loves so warmly, that he would follow him into the
heavens or to the depths, whom he received in poverty and
now beholds surrounded with pomp and riches. Here he
pours out his concern for the welfare of Eugenius's soul
and the welfare of the Church under his administration.
He adduces the distractions of the papal court, its endless
din of business and legal arbitrament, and calls upon Euge-
nius to remember that prayer, meditation, and the edifica-
tion of the Church are the important matters for him to
devote himself to. Was not Gregory piously writing upon
Ezekiel while Rome was exposed to siege from the barbari-
ans ! Teacher never had opportunity to impress lessons
upon a scholar more elevated in dignity, and Bernard ap-
proached it with a high sense of his responsibility. 3
As a preacher, Bernard excels in the glow of his imagina-
tion and the fervor of his passion. Luther said, " Bernard
is superior to all the doctors in his sermons, even to Augus-
tine himself, because he preaches Christ most excellently." 4
In common with his other writings, his sermons abound in
quotations from the Scriptures. 5 They are not pieces of
careful logical statement nor are they keen analyses of the
1 Migne, 182, 727-808.
2 " Une sorte d'examen de conscience d'un pape." Vie de S. Bernard,
II. 454.
3 Bernard's view of the functions of the papacy is given in the chapter on
the Papacy.
4 Bindseil, Colloquia, III. 134.
5 Deutsch, Herzog, 11.634, says Er besass eine Bibelerkenntniss wie wenige.
352 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
states of conscience, but appeals to the highest impulses of the
religious nature. His discourse on the death of his brother
Gerard is a model of tender treatment 1 as his address before
Konrad was of impassioned fervor. 2 The sermons on the
Canticles preached within convent walls abound in tropical
allegory, but also in burning love to the Saviour. One of
the most brilliant of modern pulpit orators has said, " the
constant shadow of things eternal is over all Bernard's ser-
mons." 3 His discourses, so speaks his biographer Gaufrid,
were congruous to the conditions of his hearers. To rustic
people he preached as though he had always been living
in the country and to all other classes as though he were
most carefully studying their occupations. To the erudite
he was scholarly; to the uneducated, simple. To the spirit-
ually minded he was rich in wise counsels. He adapted
himself to all, desiring to bring to all the light of Christ.*
The miraculous power of Bernard is so well attested by
contemporary accounts that it is not easy to deny it except
on the assumption that all the miraculous of the Middle
Ages is to be ascribed to mediaeval credulity. Miracles
meet us in almost every religious biographer of the Middle
Ages. The biographer of Boniface, the apostle of Germany,
found it necessary to apologize for not having miracles to
relate of him. But the miracles of Bernard seem to be
vouched for as are no other mediaeval works of power. The
cases given are very numerous. They occurred on Bernard's
journeys in Toulouse and Italy, nearer home in France, and
along the Rhine from Basel northward. William of St.
Thierry, Gaufrid, and other contemporaries relate them in
detail. His brothers, the monks Gerard and Guido, agree
that he had more than human power. Walter Map, the
1 For translation see Morison, p. 227 sqq., who calls it, "among funeral ser-
mons assuredly one of the most remarkable on record."
2 See Dr. Storrs's description, p. 461 sqq.
Storrs, p. 388. Vita prima, III. 13; Migne, 185, 306.
65. ST. BKUNAKD OF CLAIRVAUX. 353
Englishman who flourished in the latter years of Bernard's
life and later, speaks in the same breath of Bernard's mir-
acles and his eloquence. 1 But what, to say the least, is
equally important, Bernard himself makes reference to them
and marvelled at his power. Miracles, he said, had been
wrought of old by saintly men and also by deceivers, but he
was conscious neither of saintliness nor of fraud. 2 He is re-
ported as recognizing his power, but as being reluctant to
speak of it. 3 In a letter to the Toulousans, after his visit in
their city, he reminded them that the truth had been made
manifest in their midst through him, not only in speech but
in power. 4 And appealing to the signs which had accom-
panied his preaching the Second Crusade, he speaks of his
religious shrinking which forbade his describing them. 5
These miracles were performed at different periods of
Bernard's life and, as has been said, in different localities.
The bishop of Langres, a near relative, says that the first
miracle he saw Bernard perform was upon a boy with an
ulcer on his foot. In answer to the boy's appeal, Bernard
made the sign of the cross and the child was healed. A
mother met him carrying her child which had a withered
hand and crooked arm. The useless members were restored
and the child embraced its mother before the bystanders. 6
A boy in Charletre, ten years old, unable to move his head
and carried on a pillow, was healed and shown to Bernard
four years afterwards.
Sometimes Bernard placed his hand upon the patient,
sometimes made the sign of the cross, sometimes offered
1 1. 24, Wright's ed., p. 20.
; 2 Ego mihi necperfevtionis consciits sum necjictionis. Vitaprima, III. 7;
Migrie, 185, 314 sq.
8 Vitaprima, I. 13; Migne, 185, 262.
*Ep., 242 ; Migne, 182, 436.
6 Verecundia, de consid. II. 1 ; Migne, 185, 744. The word used here is
signa. See also Vita prima, I. 9 ; Migne, 185, 252.
6 William of "St. Thierry, in Vitaprima, I. 9; Migne, 185, 253.
2A
354 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
prayer, sometimes used the consecrated wafer or holy water. 1
In Milan many persons possessed with evil spirits were
healed. 2 As for the miracles performed on his tour along
the Rhine from Constance and Basel to Cologne, when he
was engaged in preaching the Second Crusade, Hermann,
bishop of Constance, with nine others kept a record of them,
declaring the very stones would cry out if they were not
recorded. 3 After a sermon at Basel, says Gaufrid, a woman,
who was mute, approached Bernard and after he had uttered
a prayer, she spoke. A lame man walked and a blind man
received his sight. 4 Thirty men, moved by the sight of
Bernard's healing power, accompanied him back from Ger-
many to France to take the monastic vow. 5
Abselard and his pupil, Berengar, were exceptions to
their age in expressing doubts about the genuineness of con-
temporary miracles, but they do not charge Bernard by
name with being self-deceived or deceiving others. Mor-
ison, a writer of little enthusiasm, no credulity, and a large
amount of cool, critical common sense, says that Bernard's
"miracles are neither to be accepted with credulity nor
denied with fury." 6 Neander recognized the superior ex-
cellence of the testimony, 7 refused to pronounce a sentence
1 Febricitantibus multis sanctus manus imponens et aquam benedictam
porrigens ad biberuhcm, sanitatem obtinuit, etc., Migne, 185, 278.
2 The only case I have found which was not a case of healing in Bernard's
miracles occurred at the dedication of the church of Foigny, where the con-
gregation was pestered by swarms of flies. Bernard pronounced the words
of excommunication against them and the next morning they were found dead
and people shovelled them out with spades.
8 Vitaprima, VI.; Migne, 185, 374 sqq.
* Vita prima, IV. 5 sqq. ; Migne, 185, 338-359. See Morison's remarks,
372 sqq.
8 A strange story is told of Bernard's throwing dice with a gambler. The
stake was Bernard's horse or the gambler's soul. Bernard entered into the
proposition heartily and won. The gambler is said to have led a saintly life
thereafter. Gesta Romanorum, Engl. trans, by Swan, p. 317.
8 Life of Bernard, p. 66. Dr. Morison died 1905.
7 Der Heilige Bernhard, I. 135-141 ; II. 92-95. See also Neander's Ch.
Hist , Engl. trans. IV. 256 sq.
65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 355
denying their genuineness, and seeks to explain them by the
conditions of the age and the imposing personality of Ber-
nard as in the case of those possessed with evil spirits. 1 A
presumption against the miracles of Bernard, which can
hardly be put aside, is the commonness of miracles in
the mediaeval convent and in the lives of eminent men like
Norbert, not to speak of the miracles wrought at shrines, as
at the shrine of Thomas a Becket and by contact with relics.
On the other hand, there are few mortal men whom miracles
would so befit as Bernard.
Bernard's activity was marked, all through, by a practical
consideration for the needs of life, and his writings are full
of useful suggestions adapted to help and ameliorate human
conditions. He was a student by preference, but there were
men in his day of more scholastic attainments than he. And
yet in the department of speculative and controversial the-
ology his writings also have their value. In his work on
the Freedom of the Will 2 he advocated the position that the
power to do good was lost by sin, and prevenient grace is
required to incline the will to holiness. In his controversy
with Abselard he developed his views on the Trinity and
the atonement. In some of his positions he was out of
accord with the theology and practice of the Roman Com-
munion. He denied the immaculate conception of Mary 3
and accepted foot washing as one of the sacraments. In his
views, on baptism he was as liberal as the most liberal of his
age in declaring that baptism was not indispensable to sal-
vation when the opportunity is not afforded. 4
1 " When such works," Neander says in his history, " appear in connection
with a governing Christian temper actuated by the spirit of love, they may
perhaps be properly regarded as solitary workings of that higher power of
life which Christ introduced into human nature." These words are adopted
by Dr. Storrs, who says " it cannot be doubted that a most extraordinary
force operated through Bernard on those who sought his assistance." Life
of Bernard, p. 199 sq. 3 Ep., 174; Migne, 182, 332.
2 De gratia ct libero arbitrio. 4 De baptismo aliisque questionibus.
856 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Severe at times as Bernard, the Churchman, from the
standpoint of this tolerant age seems to be, the testimonies
to his exalted moral eminence are too weighty to be set
aside. Bernard's own writings give the final and abundant
proof of his ethical quality. It shines through his works
on personal religion, all those treatises and sermons which
give him a place in the front rank of the mystics of all
ages. 1
William of St. Thierry, himself no mean theological
writer, felt that in visiting Bernard's cell he had been " at
the very altar of God." Joachim of Flore praised him in
enthusiastic language and evidently regarded him as the
model monk. 3 The impression upon Hildegard, the proph-
etess of the Rhine, was the same. 4 In his Memoir of St.
Malachy, Bernard, as has been said, put " an image of his
own beautiful and ardent soul." 6 No one but a deeply
religious character could have written such a life. Malachy,
the Irish archbishop, visited Clairvaux twice and on the
second visit he remained to die, 1148. Bernard wrote :
" Though he came from the West, he was truly the dayspring on high to
us. With psalms and hymns and spiritual songs we followed our friend on
his heavenward journey. He was taken by angels out of our hands. Truly
he fell asleep. All eyes were fixed upon him, yet none could say when the
spirit took its flight. When he was dead, we thought him to be alive ; while
yet alive, we thought him to be dead. 6 The same brightness and serenity
were ever visible. Sorrow was changed into joy, faith had triumphed. He
has entered into the joy of the Lord, and who am I to make lamentation
over him? We pray, O Lord, that he who was our guest may be our leader,
that we may reign with Thee and him for evermore. Amen."
1 See chapter on Mysticism.
2 Domus ipsa incutiebat reverentiam stii ac si ingrederer ad altare Dei,
Vitaprima, VII. 33; Migne, 185, 246.
8 Concordia, V. 38. See Schott, Die Gedanken des Abtes Joachim, Brie-
ger's Zeitschrift, 1902, 171.
* Hildegard's Works, Ep., 29 ; Migne, 197, 189.
6 Morison, p. 242.
6 Mortuus vivere et vivens mortuus putabatur, Vita fit. Malachy, XXXI.
74 ; Migne, 185, 1116. Tender as he is to his Irish friend, Bernard described
the Irish people as utter barbarians in that age.
65. ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 357
Bernard's sense of personal un worthiness was a controlling
element in his religious experience. In this regard he forms
a striking contrast to the self-confidence and swagger of
Abeelard. He relied with childlike trust upon the divine
grace. In one of his very last letters he begged his friend
the abbot of Bonne val to be solicitous in prayer to the
Saviour of sinners in his behalf. His last days were not
without sorrow. His trusted secretary was found to have
betrayed his confidence, and used his seal for his own pur-
poses. William of St. Thierry and other friends had been
passing away. Bernard's last journey was to Metz to com-
pose a dispute between bishop Stephen and the duke of
Lorraine. Deutsch, perhaps the chief living authority on
Bernard, says : u Religious warmth, Grenialitat, is the chief
thing in his character and among his gifts." l Harnack pays
this tribute to him, that " he was the religious genius of the
twelfth century, the leader of his age in religion." 2 " Ber-
nard," said Luther, and he was not easily deceived by
monkish pretension, " Bernard loved Jesus as much as any
one can." 3 Ray Palmer has imparted to his version of Ber-
nard's hymn its original religious fervor,
" Jesus, Thou Joy of loving hearts,
Thou Fount of life, Thou Light of men,
From the best bliss which earth imparts
We turn unfilled to Thee again."
The encomium of Bernard's early biographer Alan us is high
praise, but probably no man since the Apostles has deserved
it more: "The majesty of his name was surpassed by his
lowliness of heart," 4
vincebat tamen sublimitatem nominis humilitas cordis.
1 Herzog, II. 634
2 Dogmengeschichte, III. 301.
3 Bindseil, Colloquia, III. 152. Bernhardus hat den Jesus so lieb als
einer sein mag.
* Vita secunda, XVII.; Migne, 185,498.
358 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
66. The Augustinians, Carthusians, Carmelites,
and other Orders.
Among the greater orders which came into existence be-
fore 1200 are the Augustinians, the Premonstrants, the Car-
thusians, and the Carmelites.
1. The Augustinians were a distinct family from the
Benedictines, followed the so-called rule of St. Augustine,
and were divided into the canons regular of St. Augustine
and the mendicant friars of St. Augustine.
The bodies of canons regular were numerous, but their
organization was not compact like that of the stricter mo-
nastic orders. 1 They were originally communities of secular
clerics, and not conventual associations. They occupied a
position between the strict monastic existence and an inde-
pendent clerical life. Their origin can be assigned to no
exact date. As early as the eleventh century a rule, ascribed
to St. Augustine, appeared in several forms. It was pro-
fessed by the clerical groups forming the cathedral chap-
ters, and by bodies of priests associated with other churches
of prominence. 2 The various church services, as, for exam-
ple, the service of song, and the enforced rule of celibacy,
encouraged or demanded a plurality of clergymen for a
church.
Moved by the strong impulse in the direction of conven-
tual communities, these groups inclined to the communal
life and sought some common rule of discipline. For it they
looked back to Augustine of Hippo, and took his household
1 See art. Augustiner, in Herzog, II. 254 sqq., and in Wetzer-Welte, T.
1655 sqq. Theod. Kolde, D. deutsche Augustiner Congregation und Joh.
von Staupitz, Gotha, 1879.
2 At Campell, near Paris, there were not less than fifty priests, whose
number was reduced by Innocent III. to twenty-two. See Hurter, III. 375.
The terms canonicus scecularis and reyularis do not occur before the twelfth
century. Up to that time they were known as clerici religiosi, clerici regu-
lares, clerici professi, clerici communiter viventes, etc. So Denifle, Arckiv
fur Lit. und Kirchengeschichte for 1885, p. 174. He quotes Amort, Vetus
ilixciplina canonicorum reyul. et scecul., Venice, 1747, I. 333.
66. AUGUSTINIANS, CARTHUSIANS, CARMELITES. 359
as their model. We know that Augustine had living with
him a group of clerics. We also know that he commended
his sister for associating herself with other women and
withdrawing from the world, and gave her some advice.
But so far as is known Augustine prescribed no definite
code such as Benedict afterwards drew up, either for his
own household or for any other community.
About 750 Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, drew up a code
for his cathedral chapter, whom he enjoined to live together
in common, 1 and here and there in Germany isolated com-
munities of this kind were formed.
In the twelfth century we find many groups of clerics
who adopted what began to be known as the rule of St.
Augustine. 2 Under Innocent III. organizations were formed
by William Langlois of the Paris University, and others
under the name canons regular to live distinctly under this
code. Innocent IV. 3 and Alexander IV., 1256, definitely
recognized the rule.
The Augustinian rule established a community of goods.
Even gifts went into the common fund. The clerics ate to-
gether and slept in one dormitory. They wore a common
dress, and no one on returning his suit to the clothing room
retained any peculiar right to it. The papal attempts to
unite these groups into a close organization proved to be in
vain. 4 In England the Augustinian canons had charge of
Carlisle cathedral.
1 Chrodegang provided a common table for the clergy of his chapter, and
a common dormitory. The Roman synods of 1059, 1003, recommended
priests to have their revenues in common.
2 The tradition runs that this rule was prescribed by Innocent II., 1139,
for all canons regular. Helyot, II. 21.
3 In a bull, Dec. 16, 1243, Innocent speaks of the regula S. Augustini et
ordo. See Potthast, p. 954. The most distinguished convent of regular
canons in France was the convent of St. Victor.
* The cathedral of Bristol is built up from the old abbey of St. Augustine.
The Augustinian, or Austin, canons were also called the Black Canons in Eng-
land. They were very popular there. St. Botolph's, Colchester, their first
English house, was established about 1100. At the suppression of the mon-
860 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The Augustinian hermits, or Austin friars, as they were
called in England, were monastics in the true sense. They
arose after the canons regular, 1 adopted the rule of St.
Augustine, and were mendicants. In the closing period of
the Middle Ages they were addicted to preaching. To this
order John of Staupitz and Luther belonged. 2
The rule of St. Augustine was also adopted with modifica-
tion by the Premonstrants, the Gilbertines of England, 3 and
other orders, and was made the basis by Dominic of his first
rule.
2. The Premonstrants adopted the Augustinian rule, were
called from their dress White Canons, and grew with great
rapidity. 4 They had houses from Livland to Palestine, and
from Great Britain to Spain. Their founder, Norbert, born
about 1080 in Xantes, on the Lower Rhine, was a great
preacher and one of the most influential men of his age.
Thrown from his horse during a storm, he determined to de-
vote himself in earnest to religion. He gave up his position
in the Cologne Cathedral and entered the Benedictine Con-
vent of Sigeberg. Norbert then travelled about in Germany
and France as a preacher of repentance, 5 calling the people
asteries there were one hundred and seventy houses in England, and a much
larger number in Ireland. Gasquet, p. 225. See W. G. D. Fletcher, The
Blackfriars in Oxford. * See Hurter, III. 238.
2 In England they had thirty-two friaries at the time of the dissolution.
Gasquet, 241.
8 The Gilbertines, founded by St. Gilbert, rector of Sandringham, about
1140, were confined to England. There were twenty-six houses at the time
of the suppression of the monasteries. The convents for men and women
used a common church.
4 Norbert's Works and Life are given in Migne, vol. 170, and his Life in
Mon. Ger. XII., 670 sqq.; Germ, trans, by Hertel, in Geschichtschreiberder
deutschen Vorzeit, Leipzig, 1881. See also Hauck, IV. 350-66; J. von Walter,
Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, vol. II. Leipzig, 1906, pp. 119-
129, and the art. Pramonstratenser, X. 267 sqq., and Norbert, IX. 448
sqq., in Wetzer-Welte, and Prcemonstratenser, in Herzog, XV. 606 sqq., and
the literature there given ; and Gasquet, The Engl. Prcemonstratensians, in
transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc., vol. XVII. London, 1903.
5 Walter puts Norbert in the group of the itinerant preachers of the age.
66. AUGUSTINIANS, CARTHUSIANS, CARMELITES. 361
together by a sheep's bell. With others like-minded with
himself he settled, 1119, in the woods at Coucy, near Laon,
France, giving the spot the name of Prae.monstratum, or
Premontre, the designated field, 1 with reference to his having
been directed to it by a higher power. The order secured
papal sanction 1126, arid received, like other orders, special
papal privileges. Innocent III. bespoke the special interces-
sion of the Premonstrants as he did that of the Cistercians.
The first rule forbade meat and eggs, cheese and milk. As
in the case of the Cistercians, their meals were limited to
two dishes. At a later date the rule against meat was modi-
fied. Lay brethren were introduced and expected to do the
work of the kitchen and other manual services. The theo-
logical instruction was confined to a few prayers, and the
members were not allowed to read books. 2
Norbert in 1126 was made archbishop of Magdeburg and
welcomed the opportunity to introduce the order in North-
eastern Germany. He joined Bernard in supporting Inno-
cent II. against the antipope Anacletus II. He died 1134,
at Magdeburg, and was canonized in 1582. Peter the Ven-
erable and Bernard of Clairvaux praised the order and Nor-
bert himself as a man who stood near to God. 3 Miracles
were ascribed to him, but Abselard ridiculed the claim.
The almost incredible number of one thousand houses is
claimed for this order in its flourishing period. There was
also an order of Premonstrant nuns, which is said to have
numbered ten thousand women during Norbert's lifetime. 4
Their earliest settlement in England was at Newhouse, Lin-
colnshire, 1143. Norbert and Bruno, the Carthusian, were
the only Germans who established monastic orders in this
period. 6
1 Pratum monstratum. 8 Bernard, Sermon, XXII.; Ep., 66.
2 Hurter, IV. 206. * See Hurter, IV. 208.
6 In England there were more than thirty Premonstrant convents at the
suppression of the monasteries. Bayham and Easley are their best preserved
abbeys.
362 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
3. More original and strict were the Carthusians, 1 who
got their name from the seat of their first convent, Char-
treuse, Cartutium, fourteen miles from Grenoble, southeast of
Lyons. They were hermits, and practised an asceticism
excelling in severity any of the other orders of the time. 2
The founder, St. Bruno, was born in Cologne, and became
chancellor of the cathedral of Rheims. Disgusted with the
vanities of the world, 3 he retired with some of his pupils to
a solitary place, Saisse Fontaine, in the diocese of Langres,
which he subsequently exchanged for Chartreuse. 4 The
location was a wild spot in the mountains, difficult of access,
and for a large part of the year buried in snow. Bruno was
called by Urban II. to Rome, and after acting as papal ad-
viser, retired to the Calabrian Mountains and established
a house. There he died, 1101. He was canonized 1514. In
1151 the number of Carthusian houses was fourteen, and
1 Consuetudines Carthusienses, printed among Bruno's Works in Migne,
153, 651-759. Peter Dorland, Chronicon Carthnsiance, Col. 1608. For
literature see Wetzer-Welte, art. Karthauser, VII. 203, and the art. Bruno,
vol. II. 1356-63. Bruno's Works in Migne, 152, 153. In his Com. on the
Romans he anticipates Luther by inserting sola, "alone" in Rom. 3 : 28,
" a man is justified by faith alone, without the works of the law." See Dr.
Fr. Duesterdieck, Studien u. Kritiken, 1903, p. 506.
2 The device of the order is a globe surmounted by a lion with the motto
Stat crux duin volvitur orbis, "The cross stands while the globe turns."
8 The following legend was invented to account for Bruno's decision. In
1082 he was present at the mortuary services over Raymond, canon of Notre
Dame, Paris. When the words were said, " Quantas hdbes iniquitates et
peccata ?" " how many sins and iniquities hast thou ? " the dead man rose up
and replied, "justo dei judicio accusatus sw?i," "I am accused by the just
judgment of God." The next day at the repetition of the words, the dead rose
again and exclaimed, "justo dei judicio judicatus SMWI," " I am judged by the
just judgment of God." The third day the dead man rose for the third time
and cried out, "justo dei judicio condemnatus swm," " I am condemned by
the just judgment of God." This incident was inserted into the Roman
Breviary, but removed by order of Urban VIII., 1631. Hergenrother says
the legend is still defended by the Carthusians. Kirchengesch., II. 353.
4 Peter the Venerable says of a visit to Chartreuse, Ep., VI. 24, inaccessi-
biles pene nivibus et glade altissimas rupes non abhorrui, " I shrank not
back from the high rocks made inaccessible by snow and ice." Hurter's
description, IV. 150, makes the location attractive.
66. AUGUSTINIANS, CARTHUSIANS, CARMELITES. 363
they gradually increased to one hundred and sixty-eight.
The order was formally recognized by Alexander III., 1170.
The first Carthusian statutes were committed to writing
by the fifth prior Guigo, d. 1137. The rule now in force
was fixed in 1578, and reconfirmed by Innocent XL, 1682. l
The monks lived in cells around a central church, at first
two and two, and then singly. 2 They divided their time
between prayer, silence, and work, which originally consisted
chiefly in copying books. The services celebrated in com-
mon in the church were confined to vespers and matins.
The other devotions were performed by each in seclusion.
The prayers were made in a whisper so as to avoid inter-
fering with others. They sought to imitate the Thebaid
anchorites in rigid self-mortification. Peter the Venerable
has left a description of their severe austerities. Their
dress was thin and coarse above the dress of all other
monks. 3 Meat, fat, and oil were forbidden ; wine allowed,
but diluted with water. They ate only bean-bread. They
flagellated themselves once each day during the fifty days
before Easter, and the thirty days before Christmas. When
one of their number died, each of the survivors said two
psalms, and the whole community met and took two meals
together to console one another for the loss. 4 No woman
was allowed to cross the threshold. For hygienic purposes,
the monks bled themselves five times a year, and were
shaved six times a year. 5 They avoided adornment in their
1 Nova collectio statntorum Onl. Carthusiensis, Paris, 1682.
2 For the plan of a Carthusian monastery, see Dr. Venables' art. Abbey,
in "Enc. Brit.," I. 20 sq.
3 Vestes vilissimas ac super omne religionis propositum abjectissimas
ipsoque visu horrendas assumpserunt. Pet. Ven., De miracitlis, II. 28.
4 A movement among the Carthusians to pass over into other orders,
where the discipline was less rigid, was severely rebuked by Innocent III.
Hurter, IV. 161.
5 Medicinis, excepto cauterio et sanguinis minutione perra.ro utimur,
quoted by Hurter, IV. 154, from the Constitutions of Guigo. Bleeding for
medicinal purposes seems to have been common in convents. It was
864 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
churches and church dignities. 1 They borrowed books from
Cluny and other convents for the purpose of copying them. 2
The heads of the Carthusian convents are called priors, not
abbots. In its earlier history the order received highest
praise from Innocent III. and Peter the Venerable, Bernard,
and Peter of Celle. Bernard shrank from interrupting their
holy quiet by letters, and lauded their devotion to God. So
at a later time Petrarch, after a visit to their convent in
Paris, penned a panegyric of the order.
In England the Carthusians were not popular. 3 They
never had more than eleven houses. The first establishment
was founded by Henry II., at Witham, 1180. The famous
Charterhouse in London (a corruption of the French Char-
treuse), founded in 1371, was turned into a public school,
1611. In Italy the more elaborate houses of the order were
the Certosa di San Casciano near Florence, the Certosa at
Pisa, and the Certosa Maria degli Angeli in Rome. 4
In recent times the monks of the Chartreuse became
famous for the Chartreuse liqueur which they distilled. In
its preparation the young buds of pine trees were used.
practised in the convent of Heisterbach, Caesar of Heisterbach, Dial., XL 2.
According to the life of Bernard of Thiron, it was the custom in some con-
vents for monks suffering from headache or other physical ailments to have
the abbot place his hands on their bodies, trusting to his miraculous power
for healing. See Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs, Leipzig,
1906, II. p. 60.
1 And yet they have furnished at least four cardinals, seventy archbishops
and bishops, and have had rich churches noted for their works of art like the
one in Naples, or the church at Pavia, where lapis lazuli is freely used. See
Hurter, IV. 158.
2 Pet. Ven., Epp., I. 24, IV. 38. Peter gives a list of the books he sent.
8 " The discipline was too rigid, the loneliness too dreadful for our tastes
and climate." Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, p. 125.
* The order was suppressed in France at the time of the Revolution. The
monks, however, were permitted to return to Grand Chartreuse in 1816,
paying a rental of 3000 francs to the government. The mother convent has
again been broken up by the Associations Law of 1903. There were at that
time one hundred and fifty monks in the house. Some of them went to
Piedmont, and others to Tarragona, Spain, where they have set up a dis-
tillery for their precious liqueur.
66. AUGUSTINIANS, CARTHUSIANS, CARMELITES. 365
4. The Carmelites, or the Order of the Blessed Mary the
Virgin of Mt. Carmel, had their origin during the Crusades,
1156. l The legend carries their origin back to Elijah, whose
first disciples were Jonah, Micah, and Obadiah. Obadiah's
wife became the first abbess of the female community.
Their history has been marked by much division within the
order and bitter controversies with other orders.
Our first trustworthy notice is derived from Phoca-s, a
Greek monk, who visited Mt. Carmel in 1185. Berthold of
Calabria, a Crusader, made a vow under the walls of An-
tioch that in case the Christians were victorious over Zenki,
he would devote himself to the monastic life. The prayer
was answered, and Berthold with ten companions established
himself on Mt. Carmel. 2 The origin of the order became
the subject of a violent dispute between the Carmelites and
the Jesuits. The Jesuit Papebroch precipitated it in 1668
by declaring that Berthold was the founder. He was an-
swered by the Carmelite Daniel 3 and others who carried the
origin back to Elijah. Appeal was made to Innocent XII.,
who, in 1698, in the bull redemptoris, commanded the two
orders to maintain silence till the papal chair should render
a decision. This has not yet been done. 4
The community received its rule about 1208 from Albert,
afterwards patriarch of Constantinople. It was confirmed
1 Ordo B. M. V. de Monte Carmelo is the name given by Innocent IV.
The brethren are called fratres eremiti de monte Carmelo, by Honorius III.,
in his sanction of the order, 1226. The art. Carmelite, in Wetzer-Welte,
II. 1966-1976, and Karmelitcr, in Herzog, X. 84-88, give a good account and
contain lists of literature. Potthast, I. No. 7524.
2 The convent on Mt. Carmel is a conspicuous object as you approach the
coast from the Mediterranean, and from the hills round about Nazareth.
The present building was erected in 1828, and is an hour's walk from Haifa.
Napoleon used the former buildings for a hospital during his Syrian campaign.
8 Speculum Carmelitarum seu historia Eliani ordinis, 4 vols. Antwerp,
1680.
4 Benedict XIII., in 1725, gave quasi-sanction to the order's claim by per-
mitting it to erect a statue to Elijah in St. Peter's. It bears the inscription
Universus ordo Carmelitarum fundatori suo St. Elice prophetce erexit.
366 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
by Honorius III., 1226. Its original sixteen articles gave
the usual regulations against eating meat, enjoined daily
silence, from vespers to tierce (6 P.M. to 9 A.M.), and pro-
vided that the monks live the hermit's life in cells like the
Carthusians. The dress was at first a striped garment,
white and black, which was afterwards changed for brown.
With the Christian losses in Palestine, the Carmelites be-
gan to migrate westwards. In 1238 they were in Cyprus,
and before the middle of the thirteenth century they were
settled in far Western Europe. The first English house was
at Alnwick, and a general chapter was held at Aylesford,
1246.
From the general of the order, Simon Stock, an English-
man (1245-65), dates the veneration of the scapulary, 1 a
jacket which he received from the Virgin Mary. It exempts,
so the story runs, those who die with it on, from the fires of
purgatory. Mary promised to go down to purgatory every
Saturday, and release those who have worn it. The story is
included in the Breviary, 2 and was pronounced true and to
be believed by all, by Benedict XIV. In 1322 John XXII.,
in obedience to a vision, issued the famous bull Sablatina,
which promised to all entering the order, deliverance from
purgatory by Mary, the first Saturday after their decease. 3
1 The Carmelites are often called the Brotherhood of the Scapulary. The
scapulary is a sleeveless jacket covering the breast and back, and was
originally worn over the other garments when the monk was at work. The
garment has been the frequent subject of papal decree down to Leo XIII.,
1892. July 16 has been set apart since 1587 as a special festival of the scap-
ulary, and is one of the feasts of the Virgin. A work has been written on
the proper use of the scapulary, by Brocard : Eecueil des instructions sur la
devotion au St. Scapulaire de Notre Dame de Monte Carmelo, Gand, 4th
ed. 1875. Simon Stock was one hundred when he died.
2 Hergenrb'ther-Kirsch, Kirchengesch., II. 362, says it is introduced as a
matter of "pious opinion," fromme Meinung.
8 The original bull has not been found, and its authenticity has been a sub-
ject of warm dispute in the Catholic church. The pertinent words of Mary
are Ego mater gratiose descendant sabbato post eorum mortem et, quot inve-
niam in pnrgatorio, liberabo. " I, mother, will graciously descend on the
66. AUGUSTINIANS, CAUTHUSIANS, CARMELITES. 367
After the success of the Franciscans and Dominicans, the
Carmelites, with the sanction of Innocent IV., adopted the
practice of mendicancy, 1245, and the c.cenobite life was
substituted for life in solitary cells. The rules concerning
clothing and food were relaxed to meet the climatic condi-
tions of Europe.
A division took place in the order in 1378. The wing,
holding to the stricter rule as confirmed by Innocent IV.,
is known as the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance.
Both wings have their respective generals. The Carmelite
name most famous in the annals of piety is that of St.
Theresa, the Spanish saint who joined herself to the Car-
melites, 1533. She aided in founding seventeen convents
for women and fourteen for monks. This new branch, the
Barefoot Carmelites, spread to different parts of Europe,
Mt. Carmel, Africa, Mexico, and other countries. The
monks wear leathern sandals, and the nuns a light shoe. 1
Of the other numerous monastic orders, the following may
be mentioned. The Antonites, or Brothers of the Hospital
of St. Antonius 2 are named after the Egyptian hermit, St.
Anthony. The founder, Gaston, prayed to St. Anthony for
the deliverance of his son from a disease, then widely preva-
lent, and called St. Anthony's fire, morbus sacer. The
prayer was answered, and the father and his son devoted
themselves to a religious life. The order was sanctioned by
Sabbath after their death, and whomever I find in purgatory I will free."
One ground for doubting the authenticity of the bull is that Mary promises
to forgive sins. Paul V., in 1613, decreed that this "pious faith" should be
preached. See art. Sabbatina, in Wetzer-Welte, X. 1444-1447.
1 By the decision of Clement VIII., 1593, the Barefoot monks became an
independent order, and elect their own general superior. Hurter, IV. 213,
concludes his short account of the Carmelites by saying, that among other
things which they used to exaggerate to a ridiculous extent was the number
of their houses, which they gave at 7500, and of their monks, which they
gave as 180,000.
2 Falco, AntoniantK hist, compendium, Lyons, 1534. Uhlhorn, D. christl.
Liebesthatigkeit d. MittelaUers, Stuttg. 1884, 178-186, 343 sqq.
368 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Urban II., 1095, and was intended to care for the sick and
poor. In 1118 it received from Calixtus II. the church of
St. Didier de Mothe, containing St. Anthony's bones. In
1218 Honorius III. gave the members permission to take
monastic vows, and in 1296 Boniface VIII. imposed on them
the Augustinian rule. They had houses in France, Ger-
many, Hungary, and Italy. It used to be the custom on
St. Anthony's day to lead horses and cattle in front of their
convent in Rome to receive a form of blessing. 1
The Trinitarians, ordo sanctissima Trinitatis de redemp-
tione captivorum, had for their mission the redemption of
Christian captives out of the hands of the Saracens and
Moors. Their founder was John of Matha (1160-1213).
The order was also called the ordo asinorum, Order of the
Asses, from the fact that its members rode on asses and
never on horseback. 2
The order of Font Evraud (Fontis Elraldi in Poitiers)
had the peculiarity that monks and nuns were conjoined in
associated cloisters, and that the monks were under the
supervision of an abbess. The abbess was regarded as the
representative of the Virgin Mary, and the arrangement as
in conformity with the word of Christ, placing John under
the care of Mary. A church built between the male and
female cloisters was used in common. The order was
founded by Robert d' Abrissel (d. 1117), whom Urban II.
heard preach, and commissioned as a preacher, 1096. Rob-
ert was born in Brittany, and founded, 1095, a convent at
Craon. He was a preacher of great popular power. The
1 The Antonites regarded St. Anthony as the patron of stable animals,
a view popularly held in Italy. An example of this belief is given in the
Life of Philip Schaff, 56 sq.
2 The Trinitarians were also called Maturines, from their house in Paris
near St. Mathurine's chapel. They had a few houses in England. A Span-
ish order with the same design, the Ordo B. V. M. de Mercede redemptions
captivorum, was founded by Peter Nolasco and Kaymond of Pennaforte. See
Hurter, IV. 219.
66. AUGUSTLNIANS, CARTHUSIANS, CARMELITES. 369
nuns devoted themselves especially to the reclamation of
fallen women. 1 A special rule forbade the nuns to care for
their hair, and another rule commanded them to shave their
heads three times a year. 2
The Order of Grammont, founded by Stephen of Auvergne,
deserves mention for the high rank it once held in France.
It enjoyed the special patronage of Louis VII. and other
French sovereigns, and had sixty houses in France. It was
an order of hermits. Arrested while on a pilgrimage, by
sickness, Stephen was led by the example of the hermits of
Calabria to devote himself to the hermit life. These monks
went as far in denying themselves the necessities of life as
it is possible to do and yet survive, 3 but monks and nuns be-
came notorious for licentiousness and prostitution. 4
The Brothers of the Sack 5 wore a dress of rough material
cut in the shape of a bag. They had convents in different
countries, including England, where they continued to have
houses till the suppression of the monasteries. They ab-
stained entirely from meat, and drank only water. The
Franciscans derisively called them Bushmen (Boscarioli).
They were indefatigable beggars. The Franciscan chroni-
cler, Salimbene, 6 is sure Gregory X. was divinely inspired in
abolishing the order, for " Christian folk were wearied and
burdened with the multitude of beggars."
lr The last abbess died 1799. Since 1804 the abbey of Font Evraud has
been used as a house for the detention of convicts. Henry II. of England
and Richard Cceur de Lion were buried at Font Evraud. For the literature
of the order, see Herzog, VI. 125, and J. von Walter, Die ersten Wander-
prediger Frankreichs, Studien zur Gesch. des Monchthums, Robert von
Abrissel, I. Leipzig, 1903.
2 Ut capillos non nutriant suos. Walter, Wanderprediger, II. 112.
3 Hurter, IV. 140. See art. Grammont, in Wetzer-Welte, VI. 990 sqq.
* Walter, II. 143.
5 Fratres saccati, fratres de sacco, saccophori, etc. See art. Sackbruder, in
Herzog, XVII. 327. Gasquet, 241 sq.
6 See Coulton, p. 301.
2B
370 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
67. Monastic Prophets.
ST. HlLDEGARD AND JOACHIM OF FLORE.
LITERATURE. HILDEGARD'S works in Migne, vol. 197, and some not there
given in PITRA : Analecta sacra. For a list see PREGER : Geschichte
der deutschen Mystik, I. 13-36. Lives by GODEFRID and THEODORICH,
contemporaries in Migne. DAHL, Mainz, 1832. CLARIUS, with
translation of Hildegard's letters, 2 vols. Kegensburg, 1854. RICHACD,
Aix, 1876. J. P. SCHMELZEIS, Freiburg, 1897. P. FRANCHE, Paris,
1903. BENRATH, in Herzog, VIII. 71 sq. Hildegard's Causes et cures,
ed. by KAISER, Leipzig, 1903, is a sort of mediaeval manual of medicine.
JOACHIM'S published works, Liber concordice novi et veteris Testamenti,
Venice, 1519 ; Expositio in Apocalypsin and Psalterium decem chor-
darum, Venice, 1527. The errors of Joachim are given in MANSI, xxii.
981 and DENIFLE : Chartularium Univ., Par I. 272-275. SALIMBENE :
Chronicon, Parma, 1857 ; Coulton's trans., London, 1906. LUNA Cox-
SENTINUS, d. 1224, perhaps an amanuensis : Synopsis virtutum b. Joach.
in Ughelli, Italia sacra, IX. 205 sqq. GERVAISE : Hist, de Vabbe
Joachim, 2 vols. Paris, 1745. REUTER : Gesch. der Aufklarung, 1877,
pp. 191-218. RENAN in Nouvelles etudes d'hist. rel., Paris, 1884, pp.
217-323. * DENIFLE : Das Evangelium ceternum und die Commission
zu Anagni, in Archiv fur Lit.- und Kirchengesch., 1885, pp. 49-142.
* DOLLINGER : Die Papstfabeln des Mittelalters, 2d ed. by J. FRIED-
RICH, Stuttgart, 1890; Engl. trans, of 1st ed. by H. B. SMITH, N.Y.,
1872, pp. 364-391. * ARTT: Joachim, in Wetzer-Welte by EHRLE, VI.
1471-1480, and in Herzog by DEUTSCH, IX. 227-232. *E. SCHOTT:
Die Gedanken Joachims in Brieger's Zeitschrift, 1902, pp. 167-187.
The monasteries also had their prophets. Men's minds,
stirred by the disasters in Palestine, and by the spread
of heresy in Europe, here and there saw beyond the pre-
vailing ritual of church and convent to a new era in
which, however, neither hierarchy nor convent would be
given up. In the twelfth century the spirit of prophecy
broke out almost simultaneously in convents on the Rhine
and in Southern Italy. Its chief exponents were Hilde-
gard of Bingen, Elizabeth of Schonau, and Joachim, the
abbot of Flore. 1 They rebuked the clerical corruption of
1 Among others who were expecting the millennium soon to dawn, was
Norbert, who wrote to St. Bernard that the age in which he lived was the age
of antichrist. Bernard, Ep., 56 ; Migne, 182, 50, wrote back taking a contrary
view.
67. MONASTIC PROPHETS. 371
their time, saw visions, and Joachim was the seer of a new
age.
Hildegard (1098-1179), abbess of the Benedictine convent
of Disebodenberg, near Bingen on the Rhine, was the most
prominent woman in the church of her day. 1 What Bernard
of Clairvaux was to France, that, though in a lesser degree,
she was to Germany. She received letters from four popes,
Eugenius, Anastasius, Adrian, and Alexander III., from the
emperors Konrad III. and Frederick Barbarossa, from Ber-
nard and many ecclesiastics in high office as well as from
persons of humble position. Her intercessions were invoked
by Frederick, by Konrad for his son, 2 and by Bernard. Per-
sons from afar were moved to seek her aid, as for example
the patriarch of Jerusalem who had heard that a "divine
force operated in and through her." 3 Her convent was
moved from Disebodenberg to Rupertsberg and she finally
became abbess of the convent of Eibingen.
Infirm of body, Hildegard was, by her own statement, the
recipient of visions from her childhood. As she wrote to St.
Bernard, she saw them "not with the external eye of sense
but with the inner eye." The deeper meanings of Scripture
"touched her breast and burnt into her soul like a flame."*
Again she said that, when she was forty-two years old, a
fiery light of great brightness, coming from the open heavens,
transfused her brain and inflamed her whole heart and breast
like a flame as the sun lightens everything upon which his
1 The name of Heloise was perhaps as widely known, but it was for her
connection with Abelard, not for her works in the Church. The Latin form
of Hildegard is Hildegardis. M. Paris, Luard's Ed., V. 195, in his summary
of the events of 1200-1250, mentions Hildegard and Elizabeth of Thuringia
as the prominent religious female characters of the period, but Hildegard
died 1177. *Ep., XXVI. sq. ; Migne, 197, 185 sq.
8 Ep. , XXII. On the other hand, Hildegard asked Bernard to pray for her.
4 animam meam sicut flammam comburens, Migne, 197, 190. St. Bernard,
writing to Hildegard, spoke of the "sweetness of her holy love," and Hilde-
gard compares the abbot of Clairvaux to the eagle and addresses him as the
most mild of fathers, mitissime pater.
372 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
rays fall. 1 What she saw, she saw not in dreams nor in
sleep nor in a frenzied state nor in hidden places but while
she was awake and in pure consciousness, using the eyes and
ears of her inner man according to the will of God. 2 Eu-
genius III., on a visit to Treves, 1148, investigated her reve-
lations, recognized the genuineness of her miracles, and
encouraged her to continue in her course. 3 Bernard spoke
of her fame of making known heavenly secrets through the
illumination of the Holy Ghost.
It is reported by contemporaries of this godly woman that
scarcely a sick person came to her without being healed. 4
Her power was exerted in the convent and outside of it and
upon persons of both sexes. People from localities as dis-
tant as Sweden sought her healing power. Sometimes the
medium used was a prayer, sometimes a simple word of com-
mand, sometimes water which, as in one case, healed paralysis
of the tongue.
As a censor of the Church, Hildegard lamented the low
condition of the clergy, announced that the Cathari would
be used to stir up Christendom to self-purification, called
attention to the Scriptures and the Catholic faith as the
supreme fonts of authority, and bade men look for salvation
not to priests but to Christ.
She was also an enthusiastic student of nature. Her
treatises on herbs, trees, and fishes are among the most
elaborate on natural objects of the Middle Ages. She gives
the properties of no less than two hundred and thirteen
herbs or their products, and regarded heat and cold as
very important qualities of plant life. They are treated
with an eye to their medicinal virtue. Butter, she says, is
1 non visiones in somnis, nee dormiens, nee inphrenesi, nee corporeis oculis
aut auribus exterioris, nee in abditis locis percepi, sed eas vigilans, circum-
spiciens in pura mente oculis et auribus interioris hominis, etc. Scivias, I.
Prcefatio, Migne, 197, 384.
2 Scivias. See Migne, 197, 93. This is the chief collection of her visions.
Migne, 197, 383-739. 3 Ep., I. ; Migne, 197, 146. * Migne, 197, 117.
67. MONASTIC PROPHETS. 373
good for persons in ill health and suffering from feverish
blood and the butter of cows is more wholesome than the
butter of sheep and goats. Licorice, 1 which is mildly heat-
ing, gives a clear voice and a suave mind, clarifies the eyes,
and prepares the stomach for the process of digestion. The
" basilisca," which is cold, if placed under the tongue, restores
the power of speech to the palsied and, when cooked in
wine with honey added, will cure fevers provided it is drunk
frequently during the night. 2
A kindred spirit to Hildegard was Elizabeth of Schonau,
who died 1165 at the age of thirty-six. 3 She was an inmate of
the convent of Schonau, not far from Bingen, and also had vis-
ions which were connected with epileptic conditions. In her
visions she saw Stephen, Laurentius, and many of the other
saints. In the midst of them usually stood "the virgin of vir-
gins, the most glorious mother of God, Mary." 4 When she
saw St. Benedict, he was in the midst of his monkish host,
monachalis turba. Elizabeth represented herself as being
"rapt out of the body into an ecstasy." 5 In the interest of
purity of life she did not shrink from rebuking even the arch-
bishop of Treves and from pronouncing the Apostolic chair
possessed with pride and filled with iniquity and impiety.
On one occasion she saw Christ sitting at the judgment with
Pilate, Judas, and those who crucified him on his left hand
and also, alas! a great company of men and women whom
she recognized as being of her order. 6 Hildegard and Eliza-
beth have a place in the annals of German mysticism.
Joachim of Flore, 7 d. 1202, the monastic prophet of South-
1 deplantis, Migne, 197, 1139. 2 Migne, 197, 1210.
8 Her writings are given in Migne, 195, 119-196. First complete edition
by F. W. C. Koth : Die Visionen der heiligen Elizabeth, Briinn, 1884.
See Preger: Gesch. d. deutschen Mystik, 1, 37-43. 4 Migne, 195, 146.
6 a corpore rapta sum in exstasim, p. 135, or eram in exstasi et vidi, p. 145.
8 Migne, 195, 146.
7 After the convent St. Johannes in Flore, which he founded. The mem-
bers of Joachim's order are called in the papal bull, Florentii fratres, Pott-
hast, No. 2092, vol. I. 182.
374 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
era Europe, exercised a wide, influence by his writings, espe-
cially through the adoption of his views by the Spiritual wing
of the Franciscan order. He was first abbot of the Cister-
cian convent of Corazza in Calabria, and then became the
founder and abbot of St. John in Flore. Into this convent
he introduced a stricter rule than the rule of the Cistercians.
It became the centre of a new order which was sanctioned
by Co3lestin III., 1196.
Joachim enjoyed the reputation of a prophet during his
lifetime. 1 He had the esteem of Henry VI., and was en-
couraged in his exegetical studies by Lucius III. and other
popes. After his death his views became the subject of con-
ciliar and papal examination. The Fourth Lateran con-
demned his treatment of the Trinity as defined by Peter the
Lombard. Peter had declared that the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit constitute a certain supreme essence, qucedam
summa res, and this, according to Joachim, involved a substi-
tution of a quaternity for the Trinity. Those who adopted
Joachim's view were condemned as heretics, but Joachim and
the convent of Flore were distinctly excepted from condem-
nation. 2
Joachim's views on the doctrine of the Trinity are of slight
importance. The abbot has a place in history by his theory
of historical development and his eschatology. His opinions
are set forth in three writings of whose genuineness there is
no question, an exposition of the Psalms, an exposition of the
Apocalypse, and a Concord of the Old and New Testa-
ments. 3
1 When Richard Coeur de Lion was in Sicily on his way to Palestine in
1190, he was moved by Joachim's fame to send for him. The abbot inter-
preted to him John's prophecy of antichrist, whom he declared was already
born, and would in time be elevated to the Apostolic chair and strive against
everything called of God. De Hoveden, Engl. trans., II. pp. 177 sqq.
2 Joachim had set forth his views against the Lombard in a tract to which
the council referred. See Mansi, xxii., and Hefele-Knopfler, V. 880 sq.
8 Joachim, in a list, 1200, gives these three writings and also mentions
works against the Jews and on the articles of the Christian faith. Schott, p. 170,
67. MONASTIC PROPHETS. 375
Interwoven with his prophecies is Joachim's theory of his-
torical development. There are three ages in history. The
Old Testament age has its time of beginning and bloom. So
has that of the New Testament. But a third age is to follow.
The basis for this theory of three periods is found in a compari-
son of the Old and New Testaments, a comparison which re-
veals a parallelism between the leading periods of the history of
Israel and the periods of Christian history. This parallelism
was disclosed to Joachim on an Easter night, and made as
clear as day.
The first of the three ages was the age of the Father, the
second the age of the Son, of the Gospel, and the sacraments,
the third, the age of the Holy Spirit which was yet to come.
The three were represented by Peter, Paul, and John.
The first was an age of law, the second of grace, the third of
more grace. The first was characterized by fear, the second
by faith, the third was to be marked by charity. The first
was the age of servants, the second of freedmen, the third of
friends. The first brought forth water, the second wine, the
third was to bring forth oil. The first was as the light of
the stars, the second of the dawn, the third of the perfect
day. The first was the age of the married, and corresponded
to the flesh ; the second of priests, with the elements of the
flesh and the Spirit mixed ; the third of monks, and was to be
wholly spiritual. Each of these ages had a beginning, a ma-
turity, and an end. 1 The first began with Adam, and entered
upon its maturity with Abraham. The second began in the
counts twenty-four works, genuine and ungenuine, which are ascribed to
him. Among those pronounced ungenuine are the commentaries on Jeremiah
and Isaiah which were much used by the Franciscans from the middle of the
thirteenth century on. They call Rome, Babylon and show a bitter hostility
to the pope, representations which are in conflict with Joachim's genuine writ-
ings. They also abound in detailed prophecies of events which actually
occurred. " If these books were genuine," says Dollinger, p. 369, " the exact
fulfilment of the many predictions would present the most wonderful phe-
nomenon in the history of prophecy."
1 principium, fructijicatio, finis.
376 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
days of Elijah, and entered upon its maturity with Christ.
The third began in the days of St. Benedict in the sixth cen-
tury. Its maturity had already begun in the days of Joachim
himself. The consummation was to begin in 1260.
The Gospel of the letter is temporal not eternal, and
gives way in the third period to the Eternal Gospel, Rev.
14 : 6. Then the spiritual meaning of the Gospel will
be fully known. Joachim did not mean to deny the per-
manent authority of the two Testaments, when he put into
his third period the full understanding of them, in the spirit-
ual sense, and the complete embodiment of their teachings
in life and conduct. The Eternal Gospel he described, not
as a newly written revelation, but as the spiritual and per-
manent message of Christ's Gospel, which is hidden under
the surface of the letter. This Gospel he also called the
Spiritual Gospel, and the Gospel of the Kingdom. 1 It was
to be preached in the whole earth and the Jews, Greeks, and
the larger part of mankind, were to be converted. A spirit-
ual Church would result, 2 by which was meant, not a church
separate from the papacy, but a church purified. The
Eternal Gospel was to be proclaimed by a new order, the
" little ones of Christ." 3 In his Apocalypse, Joachim speaks
of two prophets of this new order. 4 This prediction was
subsequently applied to Francis and Dominic.
It was in the conception of the maturition of the periods as
much as in the succession of the periods that the theory of
development is brought out. 5 In the development of the
parallels between the history of Israel and the Christian
Church, Joachim discovered a time in each to correspond to
the seven seals of the Apocalypse. The first seal is indicated
1 See Denifle, pp. 53 sqq.
2 spiritualis ecclesia, also called ecclesia contemplativa, Denifle, pp. 66 sqq.
8 Parvuli Christi or parvuli de latino, ecclesia, a name for monks.
4 In some passages Joachim also speaks of two orders. See Dollinger, 376.
6 So Schott, p. 180, Die Fructification ist nichts anders als ein newer
Ausdruckfiir den Entwicklungsgedanken.
67. MONASTIC PROPHETS. 377
in the Old Testament by the deliverance from Egypt, in the
New by the resurrection of Christ ; the second seal respec-
tively by the experiences in the wilderness and the perse-
cutions of the ante-Nicene Church ; the third by the wars
against the Canaanites and the conflict with heresy from
Constantine to Justinian; the fourth by the peril from the
Assyrians and the age lasting to Gregory III., d. 741 ;
the fifth by the Babylonian oppression and the troubles
under the German emperors ; and the sixth by the exile, and
the twelfth Christian century with all the miseries of that
age, including the violence of the Saracens, and the rise of
heretics. The opening of the seventh seal was near at hand,
and was to be followed by the Sabbatic rest.
Joachim was no sectary. He was not even a reformer.
Like many of his contemporaries he was severe upon the
vices of the clergy of his day. " Where is quarrelling," he
exclaims, "where fraud, except among the sons of Juda,
except among the clergy of the Lord ? Where is crime,
where ambition, except among the clergy of the Lord ? " l
His only remedy was the dawning of the third age which he
announced. He waged no polemic against the papacy, 2
submitted himself and his writings dutifully to the Church, 3
and called the church of Peter the throne of Christ. He
was a mystical seer who made patient biblical studies, 4 and
saw in the future a more perfect realization of the spiritual
Church, founded by Christ, exempt from empty formalism
and bitter disputes.
An ecclesiastical judgment upon Joachim's views was
precipitated by the Franciscan Gerardus of Borgo San
Donnino, who wrote a tract called the Introduction to the
JSternal G-ospel^ 5 expounding what he considered to be
1 See Schott, 175. 2 Dollinger, 379 ; Schott, 178, etc.
8 The Fourth Lateran Council, Canon II.
* He also quotes freely from Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory the Great, and
other Fathers.
6 Introductorius in Evangelinm ceternum.
378 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Joachim's teachings. He declared that Joachim's writings
were themselves the written code of the Eternal Gospel, 1
which was to be authoritative for the third age, as the Old and
New Testaments were authoritative for the ages of the Father
and the Son. Of this last age the abbot of Flore was the
evangelist.
When Gerard's work appeared, in 1254, it created a great
stir and was condemned by professors at Paris, the enemies
of the Franciscans, William of St. Amour among the num-
ber. The strict wing of the Franciscans, the Spirituals,
adopted some of Joachim's views and looked upon him as the
prophet of their order. Articles of accusation were brought
before Innocent IV. His successor, Alexander IV., in 1255
condemned Gerardo and his book without, however, pass-
ing judgment upon Joachim. 2 Gerardo and other Spirituals
were thrown into prison, where Gerardo died eighteen years
after. John of Parma was deposed from his office as head of
the Franciscans for his Joachimism. The Franciscan chroni-
cler Salimbene was also for a while a disciple of Joachim, and
reports that the prophet predicted that the order of the
Friars Minor should endure to the end while the order of
Preachers should pass away. 3 In 1263 a synod of Aries
condemned the writings of Joachim. A century after
Joachim's death, the Franciscan Spirituals, John Peter
Olivi and Ubertino da Casale, were identified with his
views. The traces of Joachimism are found throughout
the Middle Ages to their close. Joachim was the millena-
rian prophet of the Middle Ages.
1 Or the " Gospel of the Holy Spirit." See Denifle, p. 60.
2 The practical English monk, M. Paris, speaks of Joachim's doctrines as
" new and absurd." III. p. 206.
8 Coulton's Reproduction, pp. 105, 163.
68. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 879
68. The Mendicant Orders.
For literature, see 69, 72.
A powerful impulse was imported into monasticism and
the life of the mediaeval Church by the two great mendicant
orders, 1 the Dominicans and the Franciscans, who received
papal sanction respectively in 1216 and 1223. In their first
period they gained equally the esteem of scholars, princes,
and popes, and also the regard of the masses, though not
without a struggle. 2 Dante praised them ; great ecclesiastics
like Grosseteste welcomed their coming to England as the
dawn of a new era. Louis IX. would have divided his body
between them. But it has been questioned whether the good
services which they rendered in the first years of their career
are not more than counterbalanced by their evil activity in
later periods when their convents became a synonym for
idleness, insolence, and ignorance.
The appearance of these two organizations was without
question one of the most momentous events of the Middle
Ages, 3 and marks one of the notable revivals in the history
of the Christian Church. They were the Salvation Army of
the thirteenth century, and continue to be powerful organi-
zations to this day. At the time when the spirit of the Cru-
sades was waning and heresies were threatening to sweep
away the authority, if not the very existence of the hierarchy,
Francis d'Assisi and Dominic de Guzman, an Italian and a
Spaniard, united in reviving the religious energies and
1 Ordines mendicantium.
2 The practice of mendicancy was subsequently adopted by the Carmelites,
1245, the Augustinian friars, 1256, and several other orders. In 1274 Greg-
ory X. abolished all mendicant orders except the Franciscans, Dominicans,
Augustiniau friars, and Carmelites.
3 Wilhelm Kothe: Kirchliche Zustdnde Strassburgs im 14ten Jahrhun-
dert, Freib. im Br., 1903, says the mendicant monks were distrusted in Strass-
burg from the beginning and the Dominicans had to remain outside of the
walls till 1250, and their attempt at that time to build a chapel stirred up
a warm conflict.
880 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
strengthening the religious organization of the Western
Church. As is usually the ease in human affairs, the person-
alities of these great leaders were more powerful than sol-
emnly enacted codes of rules. They started monasticism on a
new career. They embodied Christian philanthropy so that
it had a novel aspect. They were the sociological reformers
of their age. They supplied the universities and scholastic
theology with some of their most brilliant lights. The
prophecies of Joachim of Flore were regarded as fulfilled in
Francis and Dominic, who were the two trumpets of Moses
to arouse the world from its slumber, the two pillars ap-
pointed to support the Church. The two orders received pa-
pal recognition in the face of the recent decree of the Fourth
Lateran against new monastic orders.
Two temperaments could scarcely have differed more
widely than the temperaments of Francis and Dominic.
Dante has described Francis as an Ardor, inflaming the world
with love ; Dominic as a Brightness, filling it with light.
The one was all seraphical in Ardor,
The other by his wisdom upon earth
A Splendor was of light cherubical. 1
Neither touched life on so many sides as did Bernard.
They were not involved in the external policies of states.
They were not called upon to heal papal schisms, nor were
they brought into a position to influence the papal policy.
But each excelled the monk of Clairvaux as the fathers of
well-disciplined and permanent organizations.
Francis is the most unpretentious, gentle, and lovable of all
monastic saints. 2 Dominic was cold, systematic, austere.
Francis is greater than his order, and moves through his per-
sonality. Dominic was a master disciplinarian, and has ex-
erted his influence through the rules of his order. Francis
1 Paradiso, canto XI. Longfellow's trans.
2 Harnack says : " If ever man practised what he preached, that man
was Francis." Monachism, p. 68.
68. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 381
has more the elements of a Christian apostle, Dominic of an
ecclesiastical statesman. Francis we can only think of as
mingling with the people and breathing the free air of the
fields ; Dominic we think of easily as lingering in courts and
serving in the papal household. Francis' lifework was to
save the souls of men ; Dominic's lifework was to increase
the power of the Church. The one sought to carry the min-
istries of the Gospel to the masses ; the other to perpetuate
the integrity of Catholic doctrine. Francis has been cele-
brated for the humbleness of his mind and walk; Dominic
was called the hammer of the heretics.
It is probable that on at least three occasions the two
leaders met. 1 In 1217 they were both at Rome, and the
curia proposed the union of the two brotherhoods in one
organization. Dominic asked Francis for his cord, and
bound himself with it, saying he desired the two orders to
be one. Again, 1218, they met at the Portiuncula, Francis'
beloved church in Assisi, and on the basis of what he saw,
Dominic decided to embrace mendicancy, which his order
adopted in 1220. Again in 1221 they met at Rome, when
Cardinal Ugolino sought to manipulate the orders in the in-
terest of the hierarchy. This Francis resented, but in vain.
It was the purpose neither of Francis nor Dominic to
reform existing orders, or to revive the rigor of rules half-
obeyed. It may be doubted whether Francis, at the outset,
had any intention of founding an organization. His object
was rather to start a movement to transform the world as
with leaven. They both sought to revive Apostolic practice.
The Franciscan and Dominican orders differed from the
older orders in five important particulars.
The first characteristic feature was absolute poverty.
Mendicancy was a primal principle of their platforms. The
rules of both orders, the Franciscans leading the way, for-
1 Karl Miiller accepts the evidence which Sabatier gives. See Literatur-
Zeitung, 1896, p. 181.
382 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
bade the possession of property. The corporation, as well
as the individual monk, was pledged to poverty. The in-
tention of Francis was to prohibit forever the holding of
corporate property as well as individual property among his
followers. l
The practice of absolute poverty had been emphasized by
preachers and sects in the century before Francis and Domi-
nic began their careers, and sects, such as the Humiliati, the
Poor Men of Lombardy, and the Poor Men of Lyons, were
advocating it in their time. Robert d'Abrissel, d. 1117,
had for his ideal to follow "the bare Christ on the cross,
without any goods of his own." 2 One of the biographers
of Bernard of Thiron, d. 1117, calls him " Christ's poor
man," pauper Christi, and says that this " man, poor in spirit,
followed unto death the Poor Lord." 3 Likewise the follow-
ers of Norbert, the founder of the Premonstrant order, were
called the " poor men of Christ," pauperes Christi. Of an-
other itinerant preacher, Vitalis of Savigny, who lived about
the same time, his biographer said that he decided to bear
Christ's light yoke by walking in the steps of the Apostles. 4
The minds of select men and classes of men were deeply
moved in the thirteenth century to follow closely the exam-
ple of the Apostles, and they regarded Christ as having
taught and practised absolute poverty. Arnold of Brescia's
mind worked in the same direction, as did also the heretical
sects of Southern France and Northern Italy. The imita-
tion of Christ lay near to their hearts, and it remained for
Francis of Assisi to realize most fully this pious ideal of the
thirteenth century. 5
1 This does not mean that the Franciscans in their early period were idlers.
They were expected to work. Sabatier, S. Francois, VIII. p. 138.
2 nudus nudum Christum in cruce sequi, Walter, Wanderprediger.
8 Pauperem dominum ad mortem pauper spiritu pauper sequebatur, Wal-
ter, II. 44.
4 Leve jugum Christi per apostolorum vestigia ferre decrevit, Walter, II. 83.
6 Walter, Wanderprediger Frankreichs, p. 168, has brought this out well.
68. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 383
The second feature was their devotion to practical activi-
ties in society. The monk had fled into solitude from the
day when St. Anthony retired to the Thebaid desert. The
Black and Gray Friars, as the Dominicans and Franciscans
were called from the colors of their dress, threw themselves
into the currents of the busy world. To lonely contempla-
tion they joined itinerancy in the marts and on the thorough-
fares. 1 They were not satisfied with warring against their
own flesh. They made open warfare upon the world. They
preached to the common people. They relieved poverty.
They listened to the complaints of the oppressed. 2
A third characteristic of the orders was the lay brother-
hoods which they developed, the third order, called Tertia-
ries, or the penitential brothers, fratres de pcenitentia. 3
Convents, like Hirschau, had before initiated laymen into
monastic service. But the third order of the Franciscans
and Dominicans were lay folk who, while continuing at their
usual avocations, were bound by oath to practise the chief
virtues of the Gospel. There was thus opened to laymen
the opportunity of realizing some of that higher merit be-
longing theretofore only to the monastic profession. Reli-
gion was given back to common life.
A fourth feature was their activity as teachers in the
universities. They recognized that these new centres of
education were centres of powerful influence, and they
adapted themselves to the situation. Twenty years had
scarcely elapsed before the Franciscans and Dominicans
entered upon a career of great distinction at these univer-
sities. Francis, it is true, had set his face against learning,
1 Hergenrother says, "Chivalry reappeared in them in anewforra. In happy
unison were blended peace and battle, contemplation and active life, faith and
love, prudent moderation and flam ing enthusiasm." Kirchenyeschichte, II. 369.
2 " Of one thing," says Trevelyan, "the friar was never accused. He is
never taunted with living at home in his cloister and allowing souls to perish
for want of food." England in the Age of Wycliffe, p. 144.
8 So called in the bull of Gregory IX., 1228 ; Potthast, I. p. 703.
384 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
and said that demons had more knowledge of the stars than
men could have. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edi-
fieth. To a novice he said, " If you have a psaltery, you will
want a breviary ; and if you have a breviary, you will sit on
a high chair like a prelate, and say to your brother, ' Bring
me a breviary. 1 " To another he said, "The time of tribula-
tion will come when books will be useless and be thrown
away." 1 But from Alexander IV. and his successors the
Franciscans received special privileges for establishing
schools, and, in spite of vigorous opposition, both orders
gained entrance to the University of Paris. The Dominicans
led the way, and established themselves very early at the seats
of the two great continental universities, Paris and Bologna. 2
Their convent at Paris, St. Jacques, established in 1217, they
turned into a theological school. Carrying letters of recom-
mendation from Honorius III., they were at first well received
by the authorities of the university. The Franciscans estab-
lished their convent in Paris, 1230. Both orders received from
the chancellor of Paris license to confer degrees, but their arro-
gance and refusal to submit to the university regulations soon
brought on bitter opposition. The popes took their part, and
Alexander IV. 3 commanded the authorities to receive them
to the faculty. Compliance with this bull was exceedingly
distasteful, for the friars acknowledged the supreme authority
of a foreign body. The populace of Paris and the students
hooted them on the streets and pelted them with missiles. It
seemed to Humbert, the general of the Dominicans, as if
Satan, Leviathan, and Belial had broken loose and agreed to
beset the friars round about and destroy, if possible, the fruit-
1 See the quotations from the Speculum and Vita secunda of Celano, in
Seppelt, pp. 234 sqq. Also Sabatier, S. Francois, ch. XVI.
2 For the relations of the mendicant orders with the University of Paris,
see Denifle, Chartularium Univ. Parisiensis, I. ; Seppelt, Der Kampf der
Bettelorden an der Univ. Paris in der Mitte des ISten Jahrh. ; Felder,
Gesch. der wissenschafilichen Studien im Franciskanerorden bis c. 1250.
3 ChartuL, I. 285.
68. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 385
ful olive which Dominic, of most glorious memory, had planted
in the field of the Church. 1 In 1257 Alexander IV. could
congratulate all parties that tranquillity had been established. 2
At Paris and Oxford, Cologne, and other universities, they
furnished the greatest of the Schoolmen. Thomas Aquinas,
Albertus Magnus, Durandus, were Dominicans ; John of St.
Giles, Alexander Hales, Adam Marsh, Bonaventura, Duns
Scotus, Ockham, and Roger Bacon were of the order of St.
Francis. Among other distinguished Franciscans of the
Middle Ages were the exegete Nicolas of Lyra, the preachers
Anthony of Padua, David of Augsburg, Bernardino of
Siena, and Bertholdt of Regensburg (d. 1272) ; the mis-
sionaries, Rubruquis and John of Monte Corvino ; the
hymn-writers, Thomas of Celano and Jacopone da Todi.
Among Dominicans were the mystics, Eckhart and Tauler,
Las Casas, the missionary of Mexico, and Savonarola.
The fifth notable feature was the immediate subjection of
the two orders to the Apostolic see. The Franciscans and
Dominicans were the first monastic bodies to vow allegiance
directly to the pope. No bishop, abbot, or general chapter
intervened between them and him. The two orders became
his bodyguard and proved themselves to be the bulwark of
the papacy. Such organized support the papacy had never
had before. The legend represents Innocent III. as having
seen in a vision the structure of the Lateran supported by
two monks. 3 These were Francis and Dominic, and the facts
of history justified the invention. They helped the pope
to establish his authority over the bishops.* And wherever
1 Chartul., I. 309-313, gives Humbert's long letter.
2 Chartul., I. 381. See chapter on Universities.
8 Villani, V. 25, says, " This vision was true, for it was evident the Church
of God was falling through licentiousness and many errors, not fearing
God."
4 Bishop Creighton, Hist. Lectures, p. 112, says, "The friars were far
more destructive to ecclesiastical jurisdiction than any Nonconformist body
could be, at the present day, to the influence of any sensible clergyman."
He is speaking of the Anglican Church.
2c
386 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
they went, and they were omnipresent in Europe, they made
it their business to propound the principle of the supremacy
of the Holy See over princes and nations and were active in
strengthening this supremacy. In the struggle of the em-
pire with the papacy, they became the persistent enemies of
Frederick II. who, as early as 1229, banished the Franciscans
from Naples. When Gregory IX. excommunicated Fred-
erick in 1239, he confided to the Franciscans the duty of
publishing the decree amidst the ringing of bells on every
Sunday and festival day. And when, in 1245, Innocent IV.
issued his decree against Frederick, its announcement to the
public ear was confided to the Dominicans.
Favor followed favor from the Roman court. In 1222 Hono-
rius III. granted, first to the Dominicans and then to the
Franciscans, the notable privilege of conducting services in
their churches in localities where the interdict was in force. 1
Francis' will, exhorting his followers not to seek favors from
the pope, was set aside. In 1227 Gregory IX. granted his
order the right of general burial in their churches 2 and a
year later repeated the privilege conceded by Honorius 3
granting them the right of celebrating mass in all their
oratories and churches. 4 They were exempted from epis-
copal authority and might hear confessions at any place.
The powerful Gregory IX. from the very beginning of his
pontificate, showed the orders great favor. 5
Orthodoxy had no more zealous champions than the Fran-
ciscans and Dominicans. They excelled all other orders
as promoters of religious persecution and hunters of heretics.
In Southern France they wiped out the stain of heresy with
the streams of blood which flowed from the victims of their
crusading fanaticism. They were the leading instruments
1 The bulls are dated March 7 and 29. See Potthast, I. 590. The same
privilege was conceded to the Carmelites, April 9, 1229.
3 Potthast, I. 697, 721. * June 10, 1228, Potthast, I. 707.
8 Potthast, I. 701, 706. $ See Potthast, Nos. 6508, 6542, 6654, etc.
68. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 387
of the Inquisition. Torquemada was a Dominican, and so
was Konrad of Marburg. As early as 1232 Gregory IX.
confided the execution of the Inquisition to the Dominicans,
but the order of Francis demanded and secured a share in
the gruesome work. Under the lead of Duns Scotus the
Franciscans became the unflagging champions of the doctrine
of the immaculate conception of Mary which was pronounced
a dogma in 1854, as later the Jesuits became the unflagging
champions of the dogma of papal infallibility.
The rapid growth of the two orders in number and in-
fluence was accompanied by bitter rivalry. The disputes
between them were so violent that in 1255 their respective
generals had to call upon their monks to avoid strife. The
papal privileges were a bone of contention, one order being
constantly suspicious lest the other should enjoy more favor
at the hand of the pope than itself.
Their abuse of power called forth papal briefs restricting
their privileges. Innocent IV. in 1254, in what is known
among the orders as the " terrible bull," l revoked the per-
mission allowing them to admit others than members of the
orders to their services on festivals and Sundays and also the
privilege of hearing confession except as the parochial priest
gave his consent. Innocent, however, was no sooner in his
grave than his successor, Alexander IV., announced himself
as the friend of the orders, and the old privileges were
renewed.
The pretensions of the mendicant friars soon became un-
bearable to the church at large. They intruded them-
selves into every parish and incurred the bitter hostility of
the secular clergy whose rights they usurped, exercising
with free hand the privilege of hearing confessions and
1 Potthast, II. 1280. Innocent died a few weeks after issuing this bull
and, as is said, in answer to the prayers of the mendicants. Hence came
the saying, "from the prayers of the Preachers, good Lord, deliver us."
A litanis prcedicatorum libera nos, Domine.
388 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1019-1294.
granting absolution. It was not praise that Chaucer in-
tended when he said of the Franciscan in his Canterbury
Tales, He was an easy man to give penance.
These monks also delayed a thorough reformation of the
Church. They were at first reformers themselves and
offered an offset to the Cathari and the Poor Men of Lyons
by their Apostolic self-denial and popular sympathies. But
they degenerated into obstinate obstructors of progress in
theology and civilization. From being the advocates of
learning, they became the props of popular ignorance. The
virtue of poverty was made the cloak for vulgar idleness and
mendicancy for insolence.
These changes set in long before the century closed in
which the two orders had their birth. Bishops opposed
them. The secular clergy complained of them. The uni-
versities ridiculed and denounced them for their mock piety
and vices. William of St. Amour took the lead in the
opposition in Paris. His sharp pen compared the mendi-
cants to the Pharisees and Scribes and declared that Christ
and his Apostles did not go around begging. To work was
more scriptural than to beg. 1 They were hypocrites and it
remained for the bishops to purge their dioceses of them.
Again and again, in after years, did clergy, bishops, and
princes appeal to the popes against their intrusive insolence,
but, as a rule, the popes were on their side.
The time came in the early part of the fifteenth century
1 In his treatise de periculis novissorum temporum, "The Perils of the
Last Times," Basel, 1555, William has been held up as a precursor of Rabelais
and Pascal on account of his keen satire. He was answered by Bonaventura
and by Thomas Aquinas in his contra impugnantes religionem. Alexander IV.
ordered William's treatise burnt, and in the bull, dated Oct. 5, 1256,
declared it to be "most dangerous and detestable," valde perniciosum et
detestabilem. See Potthast, II. 1357. When an edition of William's treatise
appeared at Paris, 1632, the Mendicants secured an order from Louis XIII.
suppressing it. William was inhibited from preaching and teaching and
retired to Franche-Comte, where he died. See Chartularium Univ. Pari-
siensis, I. Nos. 295, 296, 314, 318, 321, 332, 339, 343, 345, etc.
69. FRANCISCAN LITERATURE. 389
when the great teacher Gerson, in a public sermon, enumer-
ated as the four persecutors of the Church, tyrants, heretics,
antichrist, and the Mendicants. 1
69. Franciscan Literature.
I. ST. FRANCIS: WORKS in Latin text, ed. by WADDING, Antwerp, 1623,
by DE LA HATE, Paris, 1841, Col., 1849, Paris, 1880-Quaracchi, 1904.
BERNARDO DA FIVIZZANO : Oposcoli di S. Fr. d'Assise, Florence, 1880.
Gives the Latin text and Ital. trans., the llule of 1223, St. Francis' will,
letters, etc. French trans, by ED. D'ALENCON : Les Opuscules de
S. Francois, Paris, 1905. H. BOEHMER : Analekten zur Gesch. des
Franc, von Assisi, Francisci opuscula, regula pcenitentium, etc., mit
einer Einleitung, Tubingen, 1904. Writings of St. Francis of Assisi,
trans, by FATHER PASCHAL EOBINSON, Phil., 1906.
LIVES. 1. THOMAS OF CELANO : Vita prima, written 1228 at the
command of Gregory IX., to justify the canonization of Francis, Rome,
1880. 2. TH. OF CELANO: Vita secunda, written about 1247 and re-
vealing the struggles within the Franciscan order, ed. by FIVIZZANO,
Rome, 1880. Both lives ed. by H. G. ROSEDALE : Thomas de Celano,
St. F. cT Assisi with a crit. Introd. containing a description with every
extant version in the original Latin, N.Y., 1904. Also ED. D' ALBION :
Th. a Celano, S. Franc. Assisiensis vita et miracula, etc., pp. Ixxxvii,
481, Rome, 1906. Fr. of Assisi according to Th. of Celano. His de-
scriptions of the Seraphic Father, 1229-1257, Introd. by H. G. ROSEDALE,
Lond., 1904. 3. Legenda trium sociorum, the Legend of the Three
Companions, Leo, Angelo, and Rufino, intimate associates of Francis.
Written in 1246 and first publ. in full by the Bollandists as an appendix
to Celano's Lives, Louvaine, 1768, Rome, 1880. It has been preserved
in a mutilated condition. The disputes within the order account for the
expurgation of parts to suit the lax or papal wing. 4. Speculum per-
fectionis sen S. Francesci Assisiensis legenda antiquissima, auctore
fratre Leone, nunc primum edidit, PAUL SABATIER, Paris, 1898; also
ed. by ED. LEMMENS, Quaracchi, 1901. Sabatier dates it 1227. Eng.
trans, by CONSTANCE, Countess de la Warr, Lond., 1902. See note
below. 5. Legenda major, or Aurea legenda major, by BONAVENTURA,
in Peltier's ed., and Quaracchi, 1898, Engl. trans., Douai, 1610, and by
Miss LOCKHART with Pref. by Card. Manning, Lond., 3d ed., 1889.
1 Matthew Paris in his re'sume" of the chief events of 1200-1250 has this to
say of the decay of the orders, "These Preachers and Minorites at first led
the life of poverty and greatest sanctity and devoted themselves assiduously
to preaching, confessions, divine duties in the church, reading and study, and
abandoned many revenues, embracing voluntary poverty in the service of God
and reserving nothing in the way of food for themselves for the morrow, but
within a few years, they got themselves into excellent condition and con-
structed most costly houses, etc." Luard's ed., V. 194.
390 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Written in obedience to the order of the Franciscan Chapter and
approved by it at Pisa, 1263. Here the legendary element is greatly
enlarged. Once treated as the chief authority, it is now relegated to a
subordinate place, as it suppresses the distinctive element repre-
sented by Francis' will. 6. Liber conformitatum, by BARTHOLOMEW
ALBERICUS of Pisa, d. 1401. Institutes forty comparisons between
Francis and Christ. Luther called it der Barfussmonche Eulenspiegel
und Alkoran, The owls' looking-glass and Koran of the Barefoot monks.
7. Actus B. Francesci et sociorum ejus, ed. SABATIER, Paris, 1902.
A collection of sayings and acts of Francis, handed down from eye-
witnesses and others, hitherto unpubl. and to be dated not later than
1328. 8. Legenda of JULIAN OF SPIRES. About 1230. 9. Legendaof
BERNARD OF BESS, publ. in the Analecta Franciscana III., Quaracchi,
near Florence. A compilation. 10. Francisci beati sacrum com-
mercium cum domina paupertate, with an Ital. trans, by ED. D'ALENQON,
Rome, 1900. Engl. trans., The Lady Poverty, by MONTGOMERY CARMI-
CHAEL, N.Y., 1902. Goes back, at least, to the 13th century, as Ubertiuo
da Casale was acquainted with it. 11. The Fioretti, or Little Flowers
of St. Francis, first publ., 1476, ed. SABATIER, Paris, 1902, pp. xvi.,
250. Engl. trans, by ABBY L. ALGER, Boston, 1887, and WOODROFFE,
London, 1905. Belongs to the 14th century. A collection of legends
very popular in Italy. Sabatier says none of them are genuine, but that
they perfectly reveal the soul of St. Francis. 12. Fratris Fr. Bartholi
de Assisio Tractatus de indulgentia S. Marice de Portiuncula, ed.
SABATIER, Paris, 1900. Belongs to the 14th century. See Lit.-zeitung,
1901, 110 sqq. 13. Regula antiqua fratrum et sororum de pvenitentia
sen tertii ordinis S. Francisci, nunc primum ed., SABATIER, Paris, 1901.
See S. MINOCCHI : La Leggenda antica. Nuovafonte biogr. di S. Fran-
cesco d'Assisi tratto da tin codice Vaticana, Florence, 1905, pp. 184.
Unfavorably noticed by LEMPP, in Lit.-zeitung, 1906, p. 509, who says
that the contents of the MS. were for the most part drawn from the
Speculum perfectionis.
MODERN BIOGRAPHIES. By CHAVIN DE MALAN, Paris, 1841, 2d ed.,
1845. K. HASE, Leip. 1856, 2d ed., 1892. First crit. biog. MRS.
OLIPHANT, Lond., 1870. MAGLIANO, 2 vols., Rome, 1874, Eng. trans.,
N.Y., 1887. L. DE CHKRANCE, Paris, 1892, Engl. trans., 1901. HENRY
THODE, Berlin, 1885, 1904. * PAUL SABATIER, a Protestant pastor : Vie
de S. Francois d'Assise, Paris, 1894. 33d ed., 1906. Crowned by
the French Academy. Engl. trans, by L. S. HOUGHTON, N.Y., 1894.
I use the 27th ed. W. J. KNOX-LITTLE, Lond., 1896. P. DOREAD,
Paris, 1903, p. 648. A. BARINE : S. Fr. d' Assist et le legende des
trois Compagnons, Paris, 1901. J. HERKLESS: Francis and Dominic,
N.Y., 1904. H. v. REDERN, Schwerin, 1905. *G. SCHXURER :
Franz von Assisi. Die Vertiefung des religiosen Lebens im
Abendlande zur Zeit der Kreuzzuge, Munich, 1905. NINO TAMAS-
SIA : S. Francesco d' Assisi e la sua leggenda, Padua, 1906, p.
216. F. VAN ORTROY : Julien de Spire, biographe de St. Francois,
69. FRANCISCAN LITERATURE. 391
Brussels, 1890. J. E. WEIS : Julian von Speier, d. 1285, Munich, 1900.
ED. LEMPP : Frere Elie. de Cortona, Paris, 1901. H. TILEMANN :
Speculum perfectionis und Legenda trium sociorum, Ein Beitrag zur
Quellenkritik der Gesch. des hi. Franz, von Assist, Leip. 1902. POTT-
HAST : Bibl. Hist., II. 1319 sqq. gives a list of ninety biographies. For
further lit. see ZOCKLER in Herzog, VI. 197-222, and " Engl. Hist.
Rev." 1903, 155 sqq., for a list and critical estimate of the lit., W.
GOETZ : Die Quellen zur Gesch. des hi. Franz von Assisi, Gotha, 1904.
First published in Brieger's Zeitschrift and reviewed in Lit.-zeitung,
1905, pp. 8-10.
II. THE FRANCISCANS: Earliest Chronicles. JORDANUS DA GIANO : de
primitivorum fratrum in Teutoniam missorum conversatione et vita
memorabilia, for the years 1207-1238, in Analecta Franciscana, pp. 1-19.
THOMAS OF ECCLESTON, a Franciscan : de adventu Minorum in An-
gliam, 1224-1250 in the Analecta Franciscana and best in Monumenta
Franciscana, ed. by J. S. BREWER, with valuable Preface, London, 1858,
Engl. trans, by Cuthbert, London, 1903. The volume also contains the
Letters of Adam de Marisco, etc.; vol. II., ed. by RICHARD HOWLETT,
with Preface, contains fragments of Eccleston and other English docu-
ments bearing on the Franciscans. Analecta Franciscana sive chronica
aliaque documenta ad historiam Minorum spectantia, Quaracchi, 1885.
Bullarium Franciscanum sive Romanorum pontificum constitutiones,
epistolce, diplomata, etc., vols. I. -IV., Rome, 1759, ed. by J. H. SBARA-
GLEA and Rossi, vols. V., VII., Rome, 1898-1904, ed. by CONRAD EUBEL;
the collection extends to 1378. Seraphicce legationis textus originales,
Quaracchi, 1897, containing the Rule of 1223 and other documents.
LUKE WADDING: Annales Minorum, 7 vols., Lyons, 1625-1648, the
most valuable history of the order. DENIFLE and EHRLE give valuable
materials and criticisms in Archiv fur Lit. und Kirchengeschichte d.
Mittelalters, vol. 1. 145 sqq. ; 509-569, III. 553 sqq. ; VI. 1 sqq., Berlin,
1885-1891. KARL MULLER : Die Anfange des Minoriten-ordens und
der Bussbruderschaften, Freib., 1885. A. G. LITTLE: The Grey-
friars in Oxford, Oxford, 1891. EUBEL : Die avignonesische Obedienz
der Mendikanten-Orden, etc., zur Zeit des grossen Schismas beleuchtet
.durch die von Clement VII. und Benedict XIII. an dieselben gerichteten
Schreiben, Paderborn, 1900. PIERRE MADONNET : Les origines de
Vordre de pcenitentia, Freib., 1898; also Les regies et le gouvernement de
Vordre depcenitentia au XIII* siecle (1212-1234), Paris, 1902. F. X.
SEPPELT: Der Kampf der Bettelorden an der Universitdt Parisin der Mitte
des ISten Jahrh. Heiligenstadt, 1892. F. GLASER: Die franziskanische
Bewegung. Ein Beitrag zur Gesch. sozialer Beformideen im Mittel-
alter, Stuttg., 1903. H. FELDER : Gesch. der wissenschaftlichen Studien
im Franziskanerorden bis c. 1250, Freib., 1904, pp. 557. RICARD ST.
CLARA: St. Claire, d'Assise, Paris, 1895. E. WAUER : Entstehung und
Ausbreitung des Klarissenordens besonders in deutschen Minoritenpro-
vinzen, Leip., 1906. E. KNOTH : Ubertino da Casale, Marburg, 1903.
E. JACOB : Johannes von Capistrano, Die auf der kgl. und Univ.
392 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Sibliothek zu Breslau befindlichen handschriftlichen Aufzeichnunyen
von Eeden und Tractaten Capistrans, etc., 2 Parts, Breslau, 1903-1905.
L. DE CHERANCE: St. Antoine de Padoue, Paris, 1906. HELYOT:
Eelig. Orders, VII. 1-421. LEA: Hist, of the Inquisition, I. 242-
304. M. CREIGHTON : The Coming of the Friars, in Lectures and
Addresses, pp. 69-84. A. JESSOPP : The Coming of the Friars. STE-
VENSON : Life of Grosseteste, London, 1899, pp. 59-87. HAUCK, IV.
366-483.
Note on the recent literature on St. Francis. A phenomenal impulse
was given to the study of the life of St. Francis by the publication of
Sabatier's biography in 1894. This biography, Karl Miiller placed " at the
summit of modern historical workmanship." Lit.-zeitung, 1895, pp. 179-
186. It showed a mastery of the literature before unknown and a pro-
found sympathy with the spirit of the Italian saint. It has revolutionized
the opinion of Protestants in regard to him, and has given to the world a
correct picture of the real Francis. Strange that a Protestant pastor should
have proved himself the leading modern student of Francis and one of his
most devoted admirers ! Sabatier has followed up his first work with tireless
investigations into the early literature and history of St. Francis and the
Franciscans, giving up his pastorate, making tour after tour to Italy, and
spending much time in Assisi, where he is held in high esteem, and is pointed
out as one of the chief sights of the place. He has been fortunate in his
discoveries of documents and, as an editor, he has created a new Franciscan
literature. His enthusiasm and labors have stimulated a number of scholars
in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland to make a specialty of the early Fran-
ciscan literature such as Minocchi, Madonnet, Miiller, Leinpp, and Schniirer.
His Life of St. Francis has been put on the Index because it is said to mis-
represent Catholic customs.
While Sabatier's presentation of Francis' career and character may be
said to have gained general acceptance, except among Franciscans, there is
a large difference of opinion in regard to the dates of the early documents
and their original contents. This literary aspect of the subject has become
greatly complicated by the publication of manuscripts which differ widely
from one another and the divergent criticisms of scholars. This confusion
has been likened by Miiller, Lit.-zeitung, 1902, p. 593, and Lempp, Lit.-
zeitung, 1906, p. 509, to a thicket through which it is almost impossible to
see a path. The confusion grows out of the determined policy of Gregory
IX. and the conventual wing of the early Franciscans to destroy all materials
which show that Francis was opposed to a strict discipline within the order
and insisted upon the rule of absolute poverty. The Franciscan chapter of
1264 ordered all biographies of Francis, written up to that time, destroyed,
except the biography by Bonaventura. St. Francis' insistence upon the
rule of absolute poverty, the original Rule, and his will, were to be utterly
effaced. The new study, introduced by the clear eye of Sabatier, has gone
back of this date, 1264, and rescued the portrait of the real Francis.
The attention of scholars is chiefly concentrated on the Speculum perfectio-
nis published by Sabatier, 1898, and the original Rule of the Franciscan
69. FRANCISCAN LITERATURE. 393
Tertiaries. The Speculum perfectionis is a life of Francis and, according to
Sabatier (Introd. li.), is the first biography, dating back to 1227. The discovery
of the document is one of the most interesting and remarkable of recent
historical discoveries. The way it came to be found -was this :
Materials for the Life of Francis are contained in a volume entitled
Speculum vitce St. Francisci et sociorum ejus, published first at Venice, 1504,
and next at Paris, 1509. In studying the Paris edition of 1509, Sabatier
discovered 118 chapters ascribed to no author and differing in spirit and
style from the other parts. He used the document in the construction of his
biography and was inclined to ascribe it to the three companions of Francis,
Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. See Vie de S. Francois, pp. Ixxii. sq. At a later
time he found that in several MSS. these chapters were marked as a distinct
document. In the MS. in the Mazarin library he found 124 distinctive chap-
ters. In these are included the 16 of the Paris edition of 1509. These
chapters Sabatier regards as a distinct volume, the Speculum perfectionis,
written by Leo, the primary composition bearing on Francis' career and
teachings. The date for its composition is derived from the Mazarin MS.
which gives the date as MCCXXVIII. This date Sabatier finds confirmed
by indications in the document itself, p. xxii. etc.
This sympathetic, lucid, and frank narrative puts Francis in a new light,
as a martyr to the ambitious designs of Gregory IX. who set aside the rule of
absolute poverty which was most dear to Francis' heart and placed over him
a representative of his own papal views. Leo, so Sabatier contends (Introd.
p. li.), wrote his work immediately after the announcement by Elias of
Cortona of the intention to erect an imposing cathedral over the "Little
Poor Man." Leo was unable to suppress his indignation and so uttered his
protest against the violent manipulation of Francis' plan and memory.
Serious objection has been raised to Sabatier's date of the Speculum
perfectionis. In agreement with Minocchi, Tilemann, Goetz, and others
have adopted the date given in the Ognissanti (a convent in Florence) MS.
namely MCCCXVII, and by a careful study of the other lives of Francis
conclude that the Speculum is a compilation. Some of its contents, how-
ever, they agree, antedate Thomas a Celano's Vita secunda or second Life
of Francis or are still older. Mttller, Lit.-zeitung, 1899, 49-52, 1902, p. 698,
and Lempp, while not accepting the early date of 1227, place the document in
the'first half of the 13th century and regard it as an authority of the first
rank, eine Quelle ersten Ranges. It shows a deep penetration into the real
mind and soul of Francis, says Lempp, Lit.-zeitung, 1905, pp. 9 sq. Tile-
mann also ascribes to the document the highest value. For the numerous
articles in Reviews, by Minocchi, van Ortroy, etc., see Tilemann, Speculum
perfectionis, p. 4.
If Sabatier has given us the real Francis of history, as there is reason to
believe he has, then the spectacle of Francis' loss of authority by the skilled
hand of Cardinal Ugolino, Gregory IX., is one of the most pathetic spectacles
in history and Francis stands out as one of the most unselfish and pure-
minded men of the Christian centuries.
394 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
70. St. Francis cT Assist.
"Not long the period from his glorious birth,
When, with extraordinary virtue blest,
This wondrous sun began to comfort earth,
Bearing, while yet a child, his father's ire,
For sake of her whom all as death detest,
And banish from the gate of their desire,
Before the court of heaven, before
His father, too, he took her for his own ;
From day to day, then loved her more and more,
Twelve hundred years had she remained, deprived
Of her first spouse, deserted and unknown,
And unsolicited till he arrived.
*********
But lest my language be not clearly seen,
Know, that in speaking of these lovers twain,
Francis and Poverty henceforth, I mean."
DANTE, Paradiso XL, Wright's trans.
High up in the list of hagiography stands the name of
Francis of Assisi, the founder of the order of the Francis-
cans. Of all the Italian saints, he is the most popular in
Italy and beyond it. 1
Francesco, Francis, Bernardone, 1182-1226, was born
and died in Assisi. His baptismal name was Giovanni, John,
and the name Francis seems to have been given him by his
father, Pietro Bernardone, a rich dealer in textile fabrics,
1 The former unfavorable view of most Protestant historians concerning
Francis is no longer held. Hallam, Middle Ages, II. 197, called him "a
harmless enthusiast, pious and sincere, but hardly of sane mind." Lea, rep-
resenting the present tendency, goes far, when he says, " No human creature
since Christ has more fully incarnated the ideal of Christianity than Fran-
cis." Hist, of Inquis., I. 260. Harnack says, " If ever a man practised what
he preached, it was St. Francis." An anonymous writer, reviewing some of
the Franciscan literature in the Independent, 1901, p. 2044, seriously pro-
nounced the judgment that " Since the Apostles, Francis received into his be-
ing the love of Christ toward men and the lower creatures more fully than
any other man, and his appearance has been an epoch of spiritual history
only less significant than that of the original Good Tidings." More judi-
cious is Sabatier's verdict, Vie de S. Franc., p. viii.,"that Francis is pre-emi-
nently the saint of the Middle Ages. Owing nothing to the Church, he was
truly theodidact."
70. ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI. 395
with reference to France, to which he made business jour-
neys. Francis studied Latin and was imperfectly acquainted
with the art of writing. He had money to spend, and spent
it in gayeties. In a war between Assisi and Perugia he joined
the ranks, and was taken prisoner. When released, he was
twenty-two. During an illness which ensued, his religious
nature began to be stirred. He arose from his bed disgusted
with himself and unsatisfied with the world. Again he en-
listed, and, starting to join Walter of Brienne in Southern
Italy, he proceeded as far as Spoleto. But he was destined
for another than a soldier's career. Turning back, and
moved by serious convictions, he retired to a grotto near As-
sisi for seclusion. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, whether
to do penance or not, is not known. His sympathies began
to go out to the poor. He met a leper and shrank back in
horror at first, but, turning about, kissed the leper's hand,
and left in it all the money he had. He frequented the
chapels in the suburbs of his native city, but lingered most
at St. Damian, an humble chapel, rudely furnished, and
served by a single priest. This became to his soul a Bethel.
At the rude altar he seemed to hear the voice of Christ. In
his zeal he took goods from his father and gave them to the
priest. So far as we know, Francis never felt called upon to
repent of this act. Here we have an instance of a different
moral standard from our own. How different, for example,
was the feeling of Dr. Samuel Johnson, when, for an act of
disobedience to his father, he stood, as a full-grown man, a
penitent in the rain in the open square of Litchfield, his head
uncovered !
The change which had overcome the gay votary of pleas-
ure brought upon Francis the ridicule of the city and his
father's relentless indignation. He was cast out of his fath-
er's house. Without any of those expressions of regret
which we would expect from a son under similar circum-
stances, he renounced his filial obligation in public in these
words: "Up to this time I have called Pietro Bernardone
father, but now I desire to serve God and to say nothing
else than ' Our Father which art in heaven.' " Henceforth
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Francis was devoted to the religious life. He dressed scantily,
took up his abode among the lepers, washing their sores, and
restored St. Damian, begging the stones on the squares and
streets of the city. This was in 1208.
Francis now received from the Benedictine abbot of Mt.
Subasio the gift of the little chapel, Santa Maria degli
Angeli. 1 Under the name of the Portiuncula Little Por-
tion it became the favorite shrine of the saint and his early
companions. There Francis had most of his visions, and there
he died. 2 In later years he secured from Honorius III. the
remarkable concession of plenary indulgence for every one
visiting the chapel between vespers of Aug. 1 to vespers
of Aug. 2 each year. This made the Portiuncula a shrine
of the first rank.
In 1209 Francis heard the words, " Preach, the kingdom of
heaven is at hand, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out
devils. Provide neither silver nor gold, nor brass in your
purses." Throwing away his staff, purse, and shoes, he made
these Apostolic injunctions the rule of his life. He preached
repentance and gathered about him Bernardo di Quintavallo,
Egidio, and other companions. The three passages command-
ing poverty and taking up the cross, Matt, xvi : 24-26 ; xix :
21 ; Luke ix : 1-6, were made their Rule. 3 The Rule meant
nothing less than full obedience to the Gospel. The Lesser
Brethren, fratres minor es, for such came to be their name,
begged from door to door, where they could not earn their
bread, went barefoot 4 and slept in hay lofts, leper hospitals,
and wherever else they could find lodgment.
1 The Speculum perfectionis, pp. 94 sqq., leaves no room for doubting the
gift of the church to Francis. The gift was made on condition that the
chapel should always remain the centre of the brotherhood.
2 That is, in the cell a few yards from Portiuncula. Both Portiuncula and
the cell, which has been turned into a chapel, are now under the roof of the
basilica.
8 Sabatier limits the Rule to these passages of Scripture. Thomas of
Celano, Vita sec., II. 10, says that Francis "used chiefly the words of the
Holy Gospel" but says further that "he added a few other things which
were necessary for a holy life pauca tamen inseruit alia."
4 In case of necessity the wearing of sandals was permitted. Speculum, p. 8.
70. ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI. 397
They were to preach, but especially were they to exemplify
the precepts of the Gospel in their lives. Living was the
most important concern, more important than sermons and
than learning. Learning, Francis feared, would destroy
humility. To a woman who came to him for alms he gave a
copy of the New Testament, which they read at matins,
the only book in the convent at the time. The convent
did not even possess a breviary. 1 A life of good works and
sympathies was what Francis was seeking to emphasize.
In his will, Francis calls himself an illiterate, idiota. Thomas
a Celano also speaks of him in the same way. The word
seems to have had the double sense of a man without educa-
tion and a man with little more than a primary education.
It was also used of laymen in contrast to clerics. Francis'
education was confined to elemental studies, and his biog-
raphers are persistent in emphasizing that he was taught
directly of God. 2 Two writings in Francis' handwriting
are in existence, one in Assisi and one in Spoleto. 3
In 1210 Francis and some of his companions went to Rome,
and were received by Innocent III. 4 The English chronicler
reports that the pope, in order to test his sincerity, said " Go,
brother, go to the pigs, to whom you are more fit to be com-
pared than to men, and roll with them, and to them preach
the rules you have so ably set forth." Francis obeyed, and
returning said, " My Lord, I have done so." 5 The pope then
gave his blessing to the brotherhood and informally sanc-
1 Speculum, 38 ; 2 Gel. 3, 35. The woman was expected to sell the book.
2 On the meaning of idiota, see Felder, p. 61, and Boehmer, p. xi. Felder,
pp. 59 sqq., makes an effort to parry the charges that Francis lacked educa-
tion and disparaged education for his order. Celano calls him vir idiota and
says nullis fuit scientiae studiis innutritus. He also speaks of him as sing-
ing in French as he walked through a forest. See the notes in Felder.
8 See Boehmer, pp. xiii. sq., 69 sq.
4 Giotto has made the meeting with Innocent seated on his throne the sub-
ject of one of his frescoes. A splendid contrast indeed, the sovereign of kings
and potentates and yet the successor of Peter, recognizing the humble
devotee, whose fame was destined to equal his own! The date usually given
is 1209. Sabatier gives reasons for the change to 1210. St. Franqois, p. 100.
6 M. Paris, Luard's ed., III. 132. Sabatier remarks that the incident has
a real Franciscan color and is to be regarded as having some historic basis.
398 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294
tioned their rule, granted them the tonsure, and bade them
go and preach repentance.
The brotherhood increased rapidly. The members were
expected to work. In his will Francis urged the brethren
to work at some trade as he had done. He compared an idle
monk to a drone. 1 The brethren visited the sick, especially
lepers, preached in ever extending circles, and went abroad
on missionary journeys. Francis was ready to sell the very
ornaments of the altar rather than refuse an appeal for aid.
He felt ashamed when he saw any one poorer than himself. 2
At this time occurred one of the most remarkable episodes
of Francis' career. He entered into marriage with Poverty.
He called Poverty his bride, mother, sister, and remained
devoted to her with the devotion of a knight. 3 The story
runs thus. Francis, with some companions, went out in
search of Poverty. Two old men pointed out her abode on
a high mountain. There Poverty, seated "on the throne
of her neediness," received them and Francis praised her as
the inseparable companion of the Lord, and " the mistress
and queen of the virtues." Poverty replied that she had
been with Adam in paradise, but had become a homeless
wanderer after the fall until the Lord came and made her
over to his elect. By her agency the number of believers
was greatly increased, but after a while her sister Lady
Persecution withdrew from her. Believers lost their forti-
tude. Then monks came and joined her, but her enemy
Avarice, under the name of Discretion, made the monks rich.
Finally monasticism yielded completely to worldliness, and
Poverty removed wholly from it. Francis now joined him-
self to Poverty, who gave him and his companions the kiss
1 Speculum, p. 49. See also Gel. 10 ; 2 Gel. 97. Sabatier insists that
Francis had "no intention of creating a mendicant order, but a working
order." 8. Francois, p. 138. Denifle also called attention to this feature,
Archiv, 1885, p. 482.
2 Speculum, xvii.
8 Celano in his first Life speaks of the sacred intercourse between Francis
and holy Poverty, commercium cum sancta paupertate. The work entitled
Sacrum commercium, etc., relates in full the story accounting for Francis'
espousal of Poverty.
70. ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI. 399
of peace and descended the mountain with them. A new
era was begun. Henceforth the pillow of the friends
was a stone, their diet bread and water, and their convent
the world. 1
In 1212 Clara of Sciffi entered into the horizon of Francis'
life. She was twelve years his junior and sixteen when she
first heard him preach at the Cathedral of Assisi. The ser-
mon entered her soul. With Francis' aid she escaped from
her father's house, and was admitted to vows by him. 2 He
conducted her to a house of Benedictine nuns. A younger
sister, Agnes, followed Clara. The Chapel of St. Damian
was set apart for them, and there the order of Clarisses was
inaugurated. Clara outlived Francis, and in 1253 expired
in the presence of brothers Leo, Angelo, and Ginefro.
In 1217 Francis was presented to Honorius III. and the
curia. At the advice of Cardinal Ugolino, later Gregory IX.,
he prepared himself and memorized the sermon. Arrived
in the pontiff's presence, he forgot what he had prepared and
delivered an impromptu discourse, which won the assembly.
Francis made evangelistic tours through Italy which were
extended to Egypt and Syria 1219. Returning from the
East the little Poor Man, il poverello, found a new element
had been introduced into the brotherhood through the in-
fluence of the stern disciplinarian Ugolino. This violent
1 Jacopone da Todi took up the idea and represented Poverty going
through the earth and knocking at the door of convent after convent, and
being turned away. Hase, with reference to Francis' apotheosis of Poverty,
says, that Diogenes was called a inad Socrates, and so Francis was a mad
Christ, ein verriickter Christus. Kirchengesch. II. 382. In its opening
chapter the Commercium explains the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in
spirit," to refer tr> the renunciation of worldly goods, and puts into the hands
of Poverty the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
2 Francis was a deacon and never a priest. According to Thomas a
Celano, Francis was austere in his relations to women, and knew only two
women by sight. Sabatier, pp. 169 sq., pronounces this portraiture false and
speaks of " the love of St. Francis and St. Clara." Here, as in other places,
the biographer allows himself the license of the idealist. Francis' last mes-
sage to Clara is given in the Speculum Perfectionis, pp. 180 sqq. The Francis-
can Rule of 1223 forbids "suspicious conferences with women," but allows
the friars to enter monastaries of nuns by permission of the Holy See. See
Robinson, p. 73.
400 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
change made the rest of the years a time of bitter, though
scarcely expressed, sorrow for him. Passing through Bologna
in 1220, he was pained to the depths at seeing a house being
erected for the brothers. Cardinal Ugolino had determined
to manipulate the society in the interest of the curia. He
had offered Francis his help, and Francis had accepted the
offer. Under the cardinal's influence, a new code was adopted
in 1221, and still a third in 1223 in which Francis' distinc-
tive wishes were set aside. The original Rule of poverty
was modified, the old ideas of monastic discipline introduced,
and a new element of absolute submission to the pope added.
The mind of Francis was too simple and unsophisticated for
the shrewd rulers of the church. The policy of the ecclesi-
astic henceforth had control of the order. 1 Francis was set
aside and a minister-general, Pietro di Catana, a doctor of
laws and a member of the nobility, was put at the head of the
society. This was the condition of affairs Francis found on
his return from Syria. He accepted it and said to his
brethren, " From henceforth I am dead for you. Here is
brother Peter di Catana whom you and I will obey," and
prostrating himself, he promised the man who had superseded
him obedience and submission. 2
This forced self-subordination of Francis offers one of the
most touching spectacles of mediaeval biography. Francis
1 According to the Speculum, pp. 1-4, 76, Francis made three Rules.
Sabatier defines them as the Rule of 1210, confirmed by Innocent III., the
Rule of 1221, confirmed by Honorius III., which in part misrepresented
Francis' views. The Rule of 1223 went further in this direction and com-
pletely overthrew Francis' original intention. The first clause of the Rule of
1223 runs, " Brother Francis promises obedience and reverence to the lord
pope, Honorius, and his successors." This rule is still in force in the
first Franciscan order. Madonnet substantially agrees with Sabatier as does
Karl Miiller. Father Robinson, himself a Franciscan friar, pp. 25-31, 182,
following the Quaracchi editors, who are Franciscans also, denies the genuine-
ness of the Rule of 1221, and holds that there were only two Rules, and that
there is no conflict between them. This conclusion is in the face of Francis'
will and the plain statement of Leo's Legenda which, however, Robinson
pays little attention to.
2 See Sabatier, S. Franqois, p. 23. Peter of Catana died March 10, 1221,
a year after his elevation.
70. ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI. 401
had withheld himself from papal privileges. He had fa-
vored freedom of movement. The skilled hand of Ugolino
substituted strict monastic obedience. Organization was to
take the place of spontaneous devotion. Ugolino was, no
doubt, Francis' real as well as professed friend. He laid
the foundation of the cathedral in Assisi to his honor, and
canonized him two years after his death. But Francis'
spirit he did not appreciate. Francis was henceforth help-
less to carry out his original ideas, 1 and yet, without making
any outward sign of insubordination, he held tenaciously to
them to the end.
These ideas are reaffirmed in Francis' famous will. This
document is one of the most affecting pieces in Christian
literature. Here Francis calls himself "little brother," f ra-
ter par vulus. All he had to leave the brothers was his bene-
diction, the memory of the early days of the brotherhood,
and counsels to abide by the first Rule. This Rule he had
received from no human teacher. The Almighty God him-
self had revealed it unto him, that he ought to live according
to the mode of the Holy Gospel. He reminded them how
the first members loved to live in poor and abandoned
churches. He bade them not accept churches or houses,
except as it might be in accordance with the rule of holy
poverty they had professed. He forbade their receiving
bulls from the papal court, even for their personal pro-
tection. At the same time, he pledged his obedience to the
minister-general and expressed his purpose to go nowhere
and do nothing against his will "for he is my lord."
Through the whole of the document there runs a chord of
anguish. 2
Francis' heart was broken. Never strong, his last years
were full of infirmities. Change of locality brought only
temporary relief. The remedial measures of the physician,
1 Almost everything done in the order after 1221 was done either " with-
out Francis' knowledge or against his will and mind," are the words of
Sabatier. 8. Francois, p. 316.
2 For the Latin text of this remarkable writing see Speculum, 309-313.
Sabatier gives a French trans., in his S. Franrois, 389 sqq.
402 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
such as the age knew, 'were employed. An iron, heated to
white heat, was applied to Francis' forehead. Francis shrank
at first, but submitted to the treatment, saying, "Brother
Fire, you are beautiful above all creatures, be favorable to
me in this hour." He jocosely called his body, Brother Ass. 1
The devotion of the people went beyond all bounds. They
fought for fragments of his clothing, hairs from his head, and
even the parings of his nails.
Two years before his death Francis composed the Canticle
to the Sun, which Renan has called the most perfect expres-
sion of modern religious feeling. 2 It was written at a time
when he was beset by temptations, and blindness had begun
to set in. The hymn is a pious outburst of passionate love
for nature. It soars above any other pastorals of the Middle
Ages. Indeed Francis' love for nature is rare in the records
of his age, and puts him into companionship with that large
modern company who see poems in the clouds and hear sym-
phonies in flowers. He loved the trees, the stones, birds,
and the plants of the field. Above all things he loved the
sun, created to illuminate our eyes by day, and the fire which
gives us light in the night time, for " God has illuminated
our eyes by these two, our brothers."
Francis had a message for the brute creation and preached
to the birds. " Brother birds," he said on one occasion,
" you ought to love and praise your Creator very much. He
has given you feathers for clothing, wings for flying, and all
things that can be of use to you. You have neither to sow,
nor to reap, and yet He takes care of you." And the birds
curved their necks and looked at him as if to thank him.
He would have had the emperor make a special law against
killing or doing any injury to " our sisters, the birds." 3
1 This designation was not original with Francis. In the fourth century
Hilarion called his body the ass which ought to have chaff and not bar-
ley. Schaff, Oh. Hist. III., 190.
2 Nouvelles Etudes d'hist. rel, 2d ed., Paris, 1844, pp. 333-351. No
reasonable doubt is possible that Francis was the author of the Canticle, now
that the Speculum has been published (pp. 234 sqq., and Sabatier's remarks,
278-283).
3 Speculum, 223-226. See Longfellow's poem, The Sermon of St. Francis.
70. ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI.
Later tradition narrated very wonderful things about his
power over nature, 1 as for example the taming of the fierce
wolf of Gubbio. He was the terror of -the neighborhood.
He ran at Francis with open mouth, but laid himself down
at Francis' feet like a lamb at his words, " Brother Wolf,
in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to do no evil to
me or to any man." Francis promised him forgiveness for
all past offences on condition of his never doing harm again
to human being. The beast assented to the compact by low-
ering his head and kneeling before him. He became the pet
of Gubbio.
The last week of his life, the saint had repeated to him
again and again the 142d Psalm, beginning with the words,
" I cry with my voice unto Jehovah," and also his Canticle to
the Sun. He called in brothers Angelo and Leo to sing to
him about sister Death. 2 Elias of Cortona, who had aided the
Roman curia in setting aside Francis' original Rule, remon-
strated on the plea that the people would regard such hilarity
in the hour of death as inconsistent with saintship. But Fran-
cis replied that he had been thinking of death for two years,
and now he was so united with the Lord, that he might well be
joyful in Him. 3 And so, as Thomas a Celano says, " he met
death singing." 4 At his request they carried him to the Porti-
uncula chapel. On his way he asked that his bed be turned
so that once more his face might be towards Assisi. He could
no longer see, but he could pray, and so he made a supplica-
tion to heaven for the city. 6 At the church he broke bread
1 -Little Flowers of Francis, 93-99. Anthony of Padua, also a Francis-
can, according to the same authority, pp. 165 sqq., preached to the fishes at
Rimini and called upon them to praise God, seeing they had been preserved
in the flood and saved Jonah. The fishes ascended above the water and
opened their mouths and bowed their heads. The people of the city were
attracted and Anthony used the occasion to preach a powerful sermon.
In the legend of St. Brandon, it is narrated that when St. Brandon sang,
the fishes lay as though they slept. Aurea Legenda, Temple Classics, vol. V.
2 Speculum, p. 241.
8 Quoniam, gratia Spiritus sancti cooperante, ita sum unitus et conjunctus
cum Domino meo quod per misericordiam suam bene possum in ipso altissimo
jocundari. Speculum, p. 237.
4 Mortem cantando suscepit. 2 Cel., 3, 139. 6 Speculum, 244 sq.
404 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
with the brethren, performing the priestly service with his
own lips. On Oct. 3, 1226, to use Brother Leo's words, he
" migrated to the Lord Jesus Christ whom he had loved with
his whole heart, and followed most perfectly."
Before the coffin was closed, great honors began to be
heaped upon the saintly man. The citizens of Assisi took
possession of the body, and Francis' name has become the
chief attraction of the picturesque and somnolent old town.
He was canonized two years later. 1 The services were held
in Assisi, July 26, 1228, Gregory IX. being present. The
following day, the pontiff laid the corner stone of the new
cathedral to Francis' memory. It was dedicated by Inno-
cent IV. in 1243, and Francis' body was laid under the main
altar. 2 The art of Cimabue and Giotto has adorned the
sanctuary within. The statuary of the modern sculptor,
Dupre, in front, represents the great mendicant dn the garb
of his order with arms crossed over his chest, and his head
bowed. Francis was scarcely dead when Elias of Cortona
made the astounding announcement of the stigmata. These
were the marks which Francis is reported to have borne on
his body, corresponding to the five wounds on Christ's cruci-
fied body. In Francis' case they were fleshy, but not bloody
excrescences. The account is as follows. During a period
of fasting and the most absorbed devotion, Christ appeared to
Francis on the morning of the festival of the Holy Cross, in
the rising sun in the form of a seraph with outstretched
wings, nailed to the cross. The vision gone, Francis felt
pains in his hands and side. He had received the stigmata.
This occurred in 1224 on the Verna, 3 a mountain on the Up-
per Arno three thousand feet above the sea.
The historical evidence for the reality of these marks is
as follows. It was the day after Francis' death that Elias of
Cortona, as vicar of the order, sent letters in all directions
iPotthast, 8236, 8240, vol. T. 709-710.
2 There, after much searching, it is said to have been found, 1818. Pius
VII., in 1822, declared it to be the genuine body of Francis.
8 Sabatier gives a charming description of the region, showing his own in-
tense sympathy with nature.
70. ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI. 405
to the Franciscans, announcing the fact that he had seen the
stigmata on Francis' body. His letter contained these words:
" Never has the world seen such a sign except on the Son of
God. For a long time before his death, our brother had in his
body five wounds which were truly the stigmata of Christ, for
his hands and feet have marks as of nails, without and within,
a kind of scars, while from his side, as if pierced by a lance, a
little blood oozed." The Speculum Perfectionis, perhaps the
first biography of Francis, refers to them incidentally, but
distinctly, in the course of a description of the severe temp-
tations by which Francis was beset. 1 Thomas a Celano, not
later than 1230, describes them more at length, and declares
that a few saw them while Francis was still alive. Gregory
IX. in 1237 called upon the whole Church to accept them, and
condemned the Dominicans for calling their reality in ques-
tion. 2 The first portrait of Francis, dating from 1236, ex-
hibits the marks.
On the other hand, a very strong argument against their
genuineness is the omission of all reference to them
by Gregory IX. in his bull canonizing Francis, 1228.
Francis' claim to saintship, we would think, could have had
no better authentication, and the omission is inexplicable. 3
1 p. 194. It is at first sight striking that the author does not give a detailed
description of this wonderful event. From another standpoint the passing
reference may be regarded as a stronger testimony to its reality. See Sa-
batier's observations, Speculum, pp. Ixvi. sqq. It will be remembered that
Sabatier places this document in 1227, only seven months after Francis'
death.
2 .In three bulls, Potthast, 10307, 10308, 10309, vol. I. 875.
8 The evidence for the genuineness is accepted by Sabatier, S. Francois,
401 sqq. Among other testimonies he adduces a Benediction upon Leo
ostensibly written by Francis' own hand, and found among the archives of
Assisi. See Speculum, p. Ixvii. sq. On the margin of this document Leo has
written his authentication. He vouches for the scene on the Verna and
the stigmata. If this document be genuine, as Sabatier insists, it is the
most weighty of all the testimonies. Hase stated, as strongly as it can be
stated, the view that the whole tale was a fraud, invented by Elias, Francis
of Assisi, 143-202, and Kirchengeschichte, II. 385 sqq. Elias was the only
eye-witness, and it is contrary to all laws that he should have denied the
people the privilege of looking at the marks, after the saint was dead, if they
had really been there. On the contrary, he hurried the body to the grave.
406 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Three explanations have been given of the stigmata on
the supposition that Francis' body really bore the scars.
1. They were due to supernatural miracle. This is the
Catholic view. In 1304 Benedict XI. established a festival
of the stigmata. 2. They were the product of a highly
wrought mental state proceeding from the contemplation of
Christ on the cross. This is the view of Sabatier. 1 3. The
third explanation treats them as a pious fraud practised by
Francis himself, who from a desire to feel all the pains
Christ felt, picked the marks with his own fingers. 2 Such
a course seems incredible. In the absence of a sufficient
moral reason for the impression of the stigmata, it is diffi-
cult for the critical mind to accept them. On the other
hand, the historical attestation is such that an effort is re-
quired to deny them. So far as we know, Francis never
used the stigmata to attest his mission. 3
The study of the career of Francis d'Assisi, as told by his
contemporaries, and as his spirit is revealed in his own last
testament, makes the impression of purity of purpose and
humility of spirit, of genuine saintliness. He sought not
positions of honor nor a place with the great. With simple
mind, he sought to serve his fellow-men by republishing the
precepts of the Gospel, and living them out in his own
example. He sought once more to give the Gospel to the
common people, and the common people heard him gladly.
Hase makes a strong case, but it must be remembered that he wrote without
having before him the later evidence brought to light by Sabatier.
1 S. Franqois, 401 sqq. Sabatier does not regard them as miraculous but
as unusual, as, for example, are the mathematical powers and musical genius
of youthful prodigies. According to Hase, this was also Tholuck's explana-
tion. See art. Stigmatisation, in Herzog, XIV. 728-734, which takes the
same view and compares the scars to the effects of parental states before
childbirth.
2 So Hausrath. The first Franciscan chronicler, Salimbene, d. 1287, no
doubt expressed the feeling of his age when he said, "Never man on earth
but Francis has had the five wounds of Christ." The Dominicans claimed
the stigmata for St. Catherine of Siena, but Sixtus IV., in 1475, prohibited
her being represented with them.
3 Bonaventura's legendary Life makes Francis a witness to the stigmata,
but he evidently is seeking to establish the fact against doubts.
70. ST. FKANCIS D'ASSISI. 407
He may not have possessed great strength of intellect.
He lacked the gifts of the ecclesiastical diplomat, but he
certainly possessed glowing fervor of heart and a magnetic
personality, due to consuming love for men. He was not a
theological thinker, but he was a man of practical religious
sympathies to which his deeds corresponded. He spoke and
acted as one who feels full confidence in his divinely
appointed mission. 1 He spoke to the Church as no one
after him did till Luther came.
Few men of history have made so profound an impression
as did Francis. His personality shed light far and near in
his own time. But his mission extends to all the centuries.
He was not a foreigner in his own age by any protest in
matters of ritual or dogma, but he is at home in all ages by
reason of his Apostolic simplicity and his artless gentleness.
Our admiration for him turns not to devotion as for a per-
fect model of the ideal life. Francis' piety, after all, has a
mediaeval glow. But, so far as we can know, he stands well
among those of all time who have discerned the meaning of
Christ's words and breathed His spirit. So Harnack can
call him the " wonderful saint of Assisi," and Sabatier utter
the lofty praise " that it was given to him to divine the
superiority of the spiritual priesthood." 2
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
most high, almighty, good Lord God, to Thee belong praise, glory,
honor, and all blessing !
Praised be my Lord God with all His creatures, and specially our brother
the sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light ; fair is he and
shines with a very great splendor : O Lord he signifies to us Thee !
Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars, the which
He has set clear and lovely in heaven.
Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind and for air and cloud, calms
and all weather by the which Thou upholdest life in all creatures.
Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable unto us
and humble and precious and clean.
1 In his will he refers again and again to his divine appointment.
Deus mihi dedit, " God has given to me."
2 Monasticism, Engl. trans., p. 67, and S. Francois, p. viii.
408 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1204.
Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom Thou givest us
light in the darkness ; and he is bright and pleasant and very mighty and
strong.
Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which doth sustain us
and keep us, and bringeth forth divers fruits and flowers of many colors,
and grass.
Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for His love'a
sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation ; blessed are they who
peaceably shall endure, for Thou, O most Highest, shalt give them a crown.
Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from which no
man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin ! Blessed are they who
are found walking by the most holy will, for the second death shall have no
power to do them harm.
Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks unto Him and serve Him
with great humility. 1
71. The Franciscans.
"Sweet Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again !"
TENNYSON.
The Brethren Minor fratres minores, or Minorites, the
official title of the Franciscans got their name from the
democratic faction in Assisi, the Minores, whom Francis at
a time of feud reconciled to the party of the aristocrats.
Before the curia at Rome, Francis insisted upon the appli-
cation of the name as a warning to the members not to
aspire after positions of distinction. 2 They spread rapidly
in Italy and beyond ; but before the generation had passed
away to which Francis belonged, the order was torn by
internal strife, growing out of the attempt to conserve the
principles originally laid down by Francis. The history of
no other order has anything to show like this protracted
conflict within its own membership over a question of prin-
ciple. The protracted dispute has an almost unique place
in the polemic theology of the Middle Ages.
According to the Rule of 1210 and Francis' last will they
1 The version of Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, 1st series. A
recent translation is given in Robinson ; the Writings of St. Francis, pp. 150
sqq., by the Franciscan, Stephen Donovan. Boehmer, p. 65, gives the Latin
text.
2 Speculum, p. 76. Domine, said Francis, minores ideo vocati sunt fratres
mei ut majores fieri non prcesumant.
71. THE FRANCISCANS. 409
were to be a free brotherhood devoted to evangelical pov-
erty and Apostolic practice, rather than a close organization
bound by precise rules. 1 Innocent III. counselled him to take
for his model the rule of the older orders, but Francis
declined and went his own path. He builded upon a few
texts of Scripture. From 1216, when Cardinal Ugolino be-
came associated with the order as patron and counsellor, a
new influence was felt, and rigid discipline was substituted
for the freer organization of Francis.
At the chapter of 1217, the decision was made to send
missionaries beyond the confines of Italy. Elias of Cortona,
once a mattress-maker in Assisi and destined to be notorious
for setting aside Francis' original plan, led a band of mission-
aries to Syria. Others went to Germany, Hungary, France,
Spain and England. As foreign missionaries, the Francis-
cans showed dauntless enterprise, going south to Morocco
and east as far as Pekin. They enjoy the distinction of hav-
ing accompanied Columbus on his second journey to the New
World and were subsequently most active in the early
American missions from Florida to California and from
Quebec along the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes and
southward to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Rule of 1221, by its lack of unity and decision, be-
trays two influences at work, one proceeding from Ugolino
and one from Francis. There are signs of the struggle
which had already begun several years before. The Rule
placed a general at the head of the order and a governing
body was constituted, consisting of the heads of the different
houses. Poverty, however, is still enjoined and the duty of
labor is emphasized that the members might be saved from
becoming idlers. The sale of the products of their labor
was forbidden except as it might benefit the sick.
The Rule of 1223, which is briefer and consists of twelve
chapters, repeats the preceding code and was solemnly
approved by the pope November 29 of the same year. This
1 See Sabatier, '8. Francois, pp. 80 sqq. Also Madonnet, Les Origines
de fordo de Pcenitentia, pp. 4, 21 sq. etc., who presents this feature of
Francis' society in its early days in a clear light.
410 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
code goes still further in setting aside the distinguished will
of Francis. The mendicant character of the order is strongly
emphasized. But obedience to the pope is introduced and
a cardinal is made its protector and guardian. The Roman
Breviary is ordered to be used as the book of daily worship.
Monastic discipline has taken the place of biblical liberty.
The strong hand of the hierarchy is evident. The freedom
of the Rule of 1210 has disappeared. 1 Peter di Catana
was made superior of the order, who, a few months later,
was followed by Elias of Cortona. Francis' appeal iii his
last testament to the original freedom of his brotherhood
and against the new order of things, the papal party did all
in its power to suppress altogether.
The Clarisses, the Minorite nuns, getting their name from
Clara of Sciffi who was canonized in 1255, were also called
Sisters of St.. Damian from the Church of St. Damian.
Francis wrote a Rule for them which enforced poverty 2
and made a will for Clara which is lost. The sisters
seem at first to have supported themselves by the toil
of their hands, bui by Francis' advice soon came to depend
upon alms. 3 The rule was modified in 1219 and the order
was afterwards compelled to adopt the Benedictine rule.*
The Tertiaries, or Brothers and Sisters of Penitence, 5 were
the third order of St. Francis, the Clarisses being reckoned
as the second, and received papal recognition for the first time
in the bull of Nicolas IV., 1289. 6 It is doubtful whether
Francis ever prescribed for them a definite rule. Of the
existence of the Tertiaries during his life there is no doubt.
They are called by Gregory IX. in 1228 the Brothers of the
Third Order of St. Francis. 7 The Rule of 1289 is made for
1 See Sabatier, Vie de S. Francois, pp. 273 sqq.
2 This Rule has only recently been found and published in the Seraphicce
legislationis textus originales, Quaracchi, 1897. See Robinson, pp. 75 sqq.
8 See Speculum, p. 181 and note.
* Finally by Urban IV., 1263. See Potthast, II. 1515. Affiliated houses
were erected at Burgos, Spain, 1219; Rheiras, France, 1220; Prague, 1235,
etc.
5 Prates et sorores de poenitentia. 6 See Potthast, II. 1856.
7 Potthast, I. 703. Nicolas IV., however, speaks of a rule given by Francis.
71. THE FRANCISCANS. 411
a lay corporation, and also for a conventual association
from which latter, married persons are excluded. The pur-
pose of Francis included all classes of laics, men and women,
married and unmarried. His object was to put within the
reach of laymen the higher practice of virtue and order of
merit associated with the monastic life. It is quite probable
that Francis took his idea from the Humiliati, known as the
Poor Men of Lombardy, Pauper es Lombardici, or perhaps
from the Waldenses, known as the Poor Men of Lyons and
also well known in Northern Italy in Francis' day. The
Humiliati had groups of laymen in the twelfth century liv-
ing according to semi-conventual rules. In 1184 they were
condemned by Lucius III. There seem to have been three
grades, the lay Humiliati, who in the ordinary avenues of
life observed specific ascetic practices; second, those who
were living in convents as monks or nuns ; and third, canons,
who were priests and lived together in common. These
three grades were sanctioned by Innocent III. in 1201 and
were protected by later popes, as for example Innocent IV. 1
It is possible that Francis' first plan was for an organization
of laymen, and that the idea of an organization of monks
developed later in his mind. The division of the Franciscans
into three grades was permanently established by the chapter
of 1221. 2 The earliest rule of the Tertiaries in thirteen
chapters sets forth the required style of dress, the asceti-
cisms they were to practise, and the other regulations they
were to observe. They were to abstain from all oaths except
in exceptional cases, provided for by the pope, to make con-
fession three times a year, have if possible the advice of
1 See the art. Humiliaten in Herzog, VIII. 447-449, by Zockler who quotes
H. Tiraboschi, Memorie degli Humiliati, 3 vols. Modena, 1766. Sabatier,
Regula antiqua, p. 15, upon the basis of Jacques de Vitry and other authori-
ties, says the Humiliati were at the height of their zeal and activity in 1220.
He confesses that the Tertiary Rule, the Regula Antiqua, is probably in part
a copy of the Rule of the Humiliati sanctioned by Innocent III. and says,
" Perhaps we have heretofore ascribed an undue originality to the Franciscan
movement."
2 See Walter Goetz, Die Regel des Tertiarierordens, in Brieger's Zeitschrift,
1902, pp. 97 sqq.
412 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the diocesan in making their wills, receive to their number
no one accused of heresy, and were neither to use deadly
weapons nor to carry them. 1 Women, if married, were not
to be admitted without the consent of their husbands, and all
who had families were enjoined to care for them as a part of
the service of God (VI. 6). 2 The Tertiaries still exist in
the Roman Catholic Church.
To follow the history of the Franciscans from 1223, the
stricter party, who sought to carry out Francis' practice
of strict Apostolic poverty and his views as set forth in his
last will, were known as the Observants, or Spirituals, or
Zealots. The party, favoring a relaxation of Francis' Rule
and supported by Gregory IX., were often called the Con-
ventuals from occupying convents of their own, especially
more pretentious buildings in cities. 3 Now the one party, now
1 VI. 3, arma mortalia contra quempiam non recipiant vel secum ferant.
This most interesting statement was changed by Nicolas IV. in 1289 so that
it read, " The brethren shall not carry arms of attack except for the defence
of the Roman Church, the Christian faith, or their country, or unless they have
authority from their superiors." The Humiliati received papal exemption
from Honorius III. against going to war. See Sabatier, Eegula antiq., p. 22,
Note.
2 The development of the Tertiary order is a matter of dispute. Sabatier
has recently made known two rules of the Tertiary order ; the first, found in
Florence, the second which he himself discovered in the convent of Capis-
trano in the Abruzzi. To compare them with the Rule contained in
Nicolas IV. 's bull, supra montem, 1289, the Rule of Nicolas has 20 chapters,
the Florentine 19, that of Capistrano 13. See the table given by Walter
Goetz, p. 100. Sabatier in his edition of the Capistrano Rule, Eegula Anti-
qua, p. 12, puts it very close to the death of Francis, between 1228 and 1234.
Les Regies, etc., p. 153, goes further and puts it back to 1221, thus making
it the second Rule of St. Francis. At any rate, it must for the present
be regarded as the oldest form of the Rule. Goetz, p. 105, while dating
the Eegula Antiqua much earlier than 1289, is inclined to regard it as a
compilation. In 1517 Leo X. perfected the regulations concerning Tertiary
orders and divided the members into two classes, those taking no vows and
living in the ordinary walks of life and those who live in convents. The
best general treatment of the subject is furnished by Karl Mtiller, Die
Anfange des Minoritenordens., pp. 115-171, and Madonnet who gives a
convenient list of the papal utterances on the Tertiaries, Les Begles, etc.,
pp. 146 sq.
8 The Observants looked to Portiuncula as the centre of the order, the
Conventuals to the cathedral of Assisi.
71. THE FRANCISCANS. 413
the other was in the ascendant. The popes were against the
Observants. The inward discord lasted throughout the
thirteenth century and far into the fourteenth 1 and was
suppressed, rather than allayed, for the first time by Leo X.,
who separated the Franciscans into two orders. In the
meantime Observants continued to agitate the scheme of St.
Francis, and some of them laid down their lives as martyrs
for their principles.
The matter in dispute among the Franciscans was the
right of the order as a corporation to hold property in fee
simple. The papal decisions in favor of such tenure began
with the bull of Gregory IX., 1230. It allowed the order to
collect money through " faithful men " appointed for dis-
tricts, these monies to be applied to the rearing of con-
ventual buildings, to missions, and other objects, and to be
held in trust for the givers. This privilege was elaborated
by Innocent IV., 1245, and was made to include the posses-
sion of books, tools, houses, and lands. Innocent made the
clear distinction between tenure in fee simple and tenure for
use and granted the right of tenure for use. By this was
meant that the order might receive gifts and bequests and
hold them indefinitely as for the donors. This was equiva-
lent to perpetual ownership, and might be compared to
modern thousand-year leases. Innocent also made the tenure
of all property within the order subject to the immediate
supervision of the pope.
Determined resistance was offered by the Observants to these
papal decrees, and they were persecuted by Elias of Cortona,
who vigorously pushed the papal policy. But they were
strong and Elias was deposed from the headship of the order
by the chapter of 1227. He was reinstated in 1232, but
again deposed in 1239. He espoused the cause of Frederick
II., and died 1253.
One of the leading men of the wing true to Francis was
Brother Leo, the author of what is probably the first biog-
raphy of Francis, the Speculum Perfectionis, the Mirror of
^bertino da Casale's interpretation of Francis' purpose is given by
Knoth, pp. 99 sq.
414 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Perfection. When the project was bruited of erecting the
great church at Assisi over Francis' remains and Elias
placed a marble vessel on the site to receive contributions,
Leo, who regarded the project as a profanation of the memory
of the saint, dashed the vessel to pieces. For this act he was
banished, amidst tumult, from Assisi. 1
It seemed for a while doubtful which party would gain
the upper hand. The Observants were in power under John
of Parma, general of the order for ten years, 1247-1257, when
he was obliged to resign and retire into strict monastic seclu-
sion. John was followed by Bonaventura, 1257-1274, the
great Schoolman, who, in the main, cast his influence on the
side of the Conventuals. The Observants became identified
with the dreams of Joachim of Flore and applied his proph-
ecy of a new religious order to themselves. These views be-
came a new source of discord and strife lasting for more than
a century. Bonaventura pronounced against the adoption of
Joachim's views by condemning Gerardo Borgo's Introduction
to Joachim's writings. The Life of St. Francis, written by
Bonaventura at the mandate of the General Chapter of Nar-
bonne, 1260, and declared the authoritative biography of the
saint by the Chapter of 1263, suppressed Francis' will and
other materials favorable to the contention of the Observants,
and emphasized the churchly and disciplinary elements of the
order. The Observants, from this time on, fought a brave
but hopeless battle. They could not successfully wage war
against the policy pushed by the papal court.
The report that Gregory X., through the acts of the coun-
cil of Lyons, 1274, intended to force the order to hold prop-
erty, stirred opposition into a flame and a number of the Ob-
servants were thrown into prison, including Angelo Clareno,
an influential author. Nicholas III., in the bull Exiit qui semi-
nat? 1279, again made a clear distinction between owning
property in fee simple and its tenure for use, and confirmed
the latter right. He insisted upon the principle that the
pope is the ultimate owner of the property of the order.
1 Sabatier, Speculum, pp. li sq. 2 Potthast, II. 1746.
71. THE FRANCISCANS. 415
The bull expressly annulled St. Francis' prohibition forbid-
ding the order to seek privileges from the pope. The Fran-
ciscan general, Bonagratia, and his two successors, accepted
the bull, but Peter Olivi, d. 1298, who had acquired wide
influence through his writings, violently opposed it. Cceles-
tin V. sought to heal the division by inviting the Observants
to join the order of the Coelestin hermits which he had
founded, and Angelo Clareno, who had been released from
prison, took this course. It was opposed by Olivi and the
Observant preacher Ubertino da Casale, 1 d. after 1330,
who remained through much persecution true to the original
principles of Francis.
And so the century in which Francis was born went out
with the controversy still going on with unabated warmth.
A somewhat new aspect was given to the controversy in the
fourteenth century. The dogmatic question was then put
into the foreground, whether Christ and his Apostles prac-
tised absolute poverty or not. In 1323 John XXII. sought
to put a final stop to the dissension by giving papal authority
to the statement that they did not practise absolute poverty.
Thus the underlying foundation of the strict Franciscan Rule
was taken away.
In another respect the Franciscans departed from the
mind of their founder. Francis disparaged learning. In
1220 he reprimanded and then cursed Pietro Staccia, a doctor
of laws, for establishing a Franciscan school at Bologna. On
hearing of a famous doctor, who had entered the order, he is re-
ported to have said, " I am afraid such doctors will be the de-
struction of my vineyard. True doctors are they who with the
meekness of wisdom exhibit good works for the betterment
of their neighbors." To Anthony of Padua, Francis wrote
and the genuineness of the letter is not disputed "I
am agreed that you continue reading lectures on theology to
the brethren provided that kind of study does not extinguish
in them the spirit of humility and prayer." 2 But Francis'
1 Ubertino, during seven days of rigid seclusion on the Verna, wrote the
ascetic work Arbor vitce cmcifixce. See Knoth, 9-14.
2 Lempp, Anthony of Padua, p. 439.
416 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
followers departed from his teachings and adapted them-
selves to the current of that wonderful thirteenth century,
established schools in their convents aud were well settled,
before the century was half gone, at the chief centres of uni-
versity culture. In 1255 an order called upon Franciscans,
going out as missionaries, to study Greek, Arabic, Hebrew,
and other languages.
The order spread rapidly from Palestine to Ireland. 1 It
was introduced into France by Pacifico and Guichard of
Beaujolais, a brother-in-law of the French king. The first
successful attempt to establish branches in Germany was
made, 1.221, by Ciesar of Spires, who had been converted by
Elias of Cortona on his journey to Syria. He was accompanied
by twelve priests and thirteen laymen, among them, Thomas
of Celano and Jordan of Giano upon whose account we depend
for the facts. The company separated at Trent, met again
at Augsburg, and then separated once more, carrying their
propaganda along the Rhine and to other parts of the coun-
try. Houses were established at Mainz, Worms, Spires, and
Cologne which in 1522 were united into a custody. The
year following four German custodies were added. 2 Csesar
of Spires, the flaming apostle of the order in Germany, be-
longed to the Observant wing, and had to suffer severe per-
secution and was put to death in prison.
As for England, nine Franciscans, four of them clerics,
only one of whom was in priest's orders, landed at Dover,
1224, and went to Canterbury, and then to London. The
account of their early labors on English soil, by Thomas of
Eccleston, a contemporary, 3 is one of the freshest and most
1 The Franciscans became guardians of the holy places in Palestine. In
answer to my question put to a Franciscan in Nazareth, whether the Church
of the Annunciation there was the veritable place where Mary had received the
message of the angel, he replied, " Most certainly ! We Franciscans have
been in this land 600 years and have thoroughly investigated all these
matters." 2 See Hauck, IV. pp. 378 sq.
8 All that we know about his life is gotten from his account of the Fran-
ciscans in England. He died about 1260. Eccleston gives the names of the
nine first missionaries. Mon. Franc., pp. 5 sqq. Agnellus of Pisa stood at
f,heir head. Three of the clerics were Englishmen.
71. THE FRANCISCANS. 417
absorbing relations of English affairs in the Middle Ages.
At Canterbury they were entertained by the monks of Fes-
kamp, and at London by the Black Friars. At Oxford they
received a warm welcome. Grosseteste announced their ad-
vent with a sermon from the words, " They that sat in dark-
ness have seen a great light." It was as if the door to a
new religious era had been opened. Of their settlement in
St. Ebbe's parish, Oxford, it was said that " there was sown a
grain of mustard seed which grew to be greater than all the
trees." They were quickly settled at Cambridge, Norwich,
Northampton, Yarmouth, and other centres. They were
the first popular preachers that England had seen, and the
first to embody a practical philanthropy. 1 The condition of
English villages and towns at that day was very wretched.
Skin diseases were fearfully prevalent, including leprosy.
Destructive epidemics spread with great rapidity. Sanitary
precautions were unknown. Stagnant pools and piles of
refuse abounded. 2
Partly from necessity and partly from pure choice these
ardent religionists made choice of quarters in the poorest
and most neglected parts of the towns. In Norwich they
settled in a swamp through which the city sewerage passed.
At Newgate, now a part of London, they betook themselves
to Stinking Lane. At Cambridge they occupied the decayed
gaol.
No wonder that such zeal received recognition. The
people soon learned to respect the new apostles. Adam
Marsh joined them, and he and Grosseteste, the most influ-
ential English ecclesiastic of his day, lectured in the Fran-
ciscan school at Oxford. The burgesses of London and
other towns gave them lands, as did also the king, at Shrews-
bury. In 1256 the number of English friars had increased
to 1242, settled in forty-nine different localities. 3 The Fran-
ciscans also gave an impetus to learning ; they set up schools,
^reighton, p. 107.
2 See the descriptions of Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, pp. 21 sqq., and
Brewer's Mon. Franc., pp. xv. sq.
8 Mon. Franc., p. xli.
2E
418 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
as at Oxford, where Robert Grosseteste delivered lectures
for them. Most of the great English Schoolmen belonged
to the Franciscan order. Eccleston describes the godly
lives of the early English Franciscans, their abstinence, and
their light-heartedness. 1 Less than fifty years after their
advent, one of their number, Robert Kilwarby, was sitting
in the archepiscopal chair of Canterbury ; to another Fran-
ciscan, Bonaventura, was offered the see of York, which he
declined.
In time, the history of the Franciscans followed the usual
course of human prosperity. 2 They fell from their first
estate. With honors and lands came demoralization. They
gained an unsavory reputation as collectors of papal reve-
nues. Matthew Paris' rebukes of their arrogance date
back as far as 1235, and he said that Innocent IV. turned
them from fishers of men into fishers of pennies. At the
sequestration of the religious houses by Henry VIII., the
Franciscan convent of Christ's Church, London, was the first
to fall, 1532. 3
1 He tells a comic story of William de Madeley, at Oxford, who, finding a
pair of shoes, put them on and went to matins. Going to sleep he dreamt he
was attacked by thieves, and thrust out his feet to show that he was a friar.
But lo ! the shoes were still on, and starting up he flung them out of the win-
dow. Another poor friar, Gilbert de Vyz, so he relates, was badly treated by
the devil. It happened at Cornhill. The devil at his final visit exclaimed,
" Sir, do you think you have escaped me ? " De Vyz picked up a handful
of lice and threw it at the devil, and he vanished, p. 13.
2 John L' Estrange says that, at the time they were falling out of favor,
one English will out of every three conveyed property to the Franciscans.
Quoted by Howlett in his Preface to Mon. Franc., II. p. xxvii.
3 According to Gasquet, p. 237, there were sixty-six Franciscan houses.
Addis and Scannell's Catholic Diet., p. 388, gives a list of sixty-four. The
first house of the Franciscan nuns, or Poor Clares, was founded outside of
Aldgate, London, 1293, and was known as " the Minories," a name the
locality still retains. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries they
bad three houses in England.
72. ST. DOMINIC AND THE DOMINICANS. 419
72. St. Dominic and the Dominicans.
LITERATURE. The earliest Life by JORDANUS, Dominic's successor as head of
the order : de principiis ordinis prcedicatorum in QUETIF-ECHARD, who
gives five other early biographies (Bartholomew of Trent, 1244-1251,
Humbert de Romanis, 1250, etc.), and ed. by J. J. BERTHIER, Freib., i.
Schw., 1892. H. D. LACORDAIRE, d. 1861 : Vie de S. Dominique, Paris,
1840, 8th ed. 1882. Also Hist. Studies of the Order of S. Dom. 1170-
1221, Engl. trans., N.Y., 1869. E. CARO: S. Dom. et les Dominicains,
Paris, 1853. A. T. DRAKE: Hist, of St. Dom., Founder of the Friar
Preachers, London, 1891. BALME ET LELAIDIER : Cartulaire ou hist,
diplomatique de S. Dom., Paris, 1892. J. GUIRAUD: S. Dom., Paris,
2d ed., 1899. For titles of about thirty lives, see Potthast, II. 1272.
QUETIF-ECHARD : Script, ord. Pr dedicator um, 2 vols. Paris, 1719-
1721. RIPOLL AND BERMOND : Bullarium ord. Prced., 8 vols. Rome,
1737 sqq. MAMACHI: Annal. ord. Prced., Rome, 1756. Monu-
menta ord. fratrum Prced. hist., ed. by B. M. REIOHERT, Louvaine
and Rome, 10 vols., 1897-1901. Vol. III. gives the acts of the general
chapters of the order, 1220-1303. A. DANZAS : Etudes sur les temps
primitifs de Vordre de. S. Dom., Paris, 1873-1885. * DENIFLB : Die Con-
stitutionen des Predigerordens vom Jahre 1228, and Die Constitutionen
des Raymunds von Penaforte 1238-1241 in Archiv fur Lit. und Kirchen-
gesch., 1885, pp. 165-227 and 1889, 530-565. HELYOT : Bel. Orders.
LEA : Hist, of Inquisition, I. 242-304, etc. Wetzer-Welte, art. Domini-
cus, III. 1931-1945. W. LESCHER : St. Dominic and the Rosary, Lon-
don, 1902. H. HOLZAPFEL : S. Dom. und der Rosenkranz, Munich, 1903.
The Spaniard, Dominic, founder of the order of preachers,
usually called the Dominicans, 1 lacks the genial personal
element of the saint of Assisi, and his career has little to
correspond to the romantic features of his contemporary's
career. Dominic was of resolute purpose, zealous for propa-
gating the orthodox faith, and devoted to the Church and
hierarchy. His influence has been through the organization
he created, and not through his personal experiences and con-
tact with the people of his age. This accounts for the small
number of biographies of him as compared with the large
number of Francis.
Domingo, or Dominic, was born 1170 at Calaroga, Spain,
and died Aug. 6, 1121, in Bologna. 2 His mother, Juana of
1 Ordo prcedicatorum, fratres prcedicatores, or simply prcedicatores, as in
the papal bulls and the constitutions of the order.
2 His descent from the noble family of Guzman has been disputed by the
Bollandists.
420 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Aza, is worshipped as a saint in the Dominican ritual. At
seven the son passed under the priestly instruction of an
uncle. Ten years were subsequently spent at Palencia in the
study of philosophy and theology, and he is said to have
excelled as a student. About 1195, he was made canon at
Osma, which gives its name to the episcopal diocese, within
whose bounds he was born. In 1203 he accompanied his
bishop, Diego d'Azeveda, to France 1 on a mission to secure
a bride for the son of Alfonzo VIII. of Castile. This and
subsequent journeys across the Pyrenees brought him into
contact with the Albigenses and the legates despatched by
Innocent III. to take measures to suppress heresy in Southern
France. Dominic threw himself into the movement for sup-
pressing heresy and started upon a tour of preaching. At
Prouille in the diocese of Toulouse, he erected an asylum
for girls to offset the schools established by the Albigenses,
for the training of the daughters of impoverished noblemen.
He was on intimate terms with Simon de Montfort, but, so
far as is known, he took no active part in the Albigensian
crusade except as a spiritual adviser. 2 His attempt to estab-
lish a mission for the conversion of heretics received the sup-
port of Fulke, bishop of Toulouse, who in 1215 granted him
one-sixth of the tithes of his diocese. Among the first to
ally themselves to Dominic was Peter Cellani, a citizen of
Toulouse, who gave him a house.
An epoch in Dominic's career was his visit in Rome during
the sessions of the Fourth Lateran Council, when he received
encouragement from Innocent III. who declined to assent to
the proposal of a new order and bade him adopt one of the
existing monastic constitutions. 3 Dominic chose the rule of
the canons regular of St. Augustine, 4 adopted the black dress
1 Jordanus says, they went ad Marchias, which probably refers to the
domain of Hugo of Lusignan, Count de la Marche, and not to Denmark, as
often represented.
2 The bull canonizing Dominic says, hvereticos caritative ad poenitentiam
et conversionem fidei hortabatur, he affectionately exhorted heretics to return
to the faith. 8 Potthast, I. 436.
4 See Denifle, Archiv, 1885, p. 169, who says that Dominic took as the
basis of his rule the rule of the Premonstrants and insists that his followers
72. ST. DOMINIC AND THE DOMINICANS. 421
of the Augustinians, and built the convent of St. Romanus
at Toulouse. He was again in Rome from September, 1216,
to Easter, 1217. Honorius III. in 1216 approved the or-
ganization, and confirmed it in the possession of goods and
houses. An unreliable tradition states that Honorius also
conferred upon Dominic the important office of Master of the
Palace, magister palatii. The office cannot be traced far
beyond Gregory IX. 1
The legendary accounts of his life represent the saint at
this time as engaged in endless scourgings and other most
rigorous asceticisms. Miracles, even to the raising of the
dead, were ascribed to him.
In 1217 Dominic sent out monks to start colonies. The
order took quick root in large cities, Paris, Bologna, and
Rome, the famous professor of canon law at Paris, Regi-
nald, taking its vows. Dominic himself in 1218 established
two convents in Spain, one for women in Madrid and one
for men at Seville. The first Dominican house in Paris,
the convent of St. Jacques, gave the name Jacobins to the
Dominicans in France and Jacobites to the party in the
French Revolution which held its meetings there. In 1224
St. Jacques had one hundred and twenty inmates. The
order had a strong French element and included in its
prayers a prayer for the French king. From France, the
Dominicans went into Germany. Jordanus and other in-
mates of St. Jacques were Germans. They quickly estab-
lished themselves, in spite of episcopal prohibitions and
opposition from other orders, in Cologne, Worms, Strass-
burg, Basel, and other German cities. 2 In 1221 the order
were canons regular. Denifle was a Dominican, and in his able article gives
too much credit to Dominic for originality.
1 This important office according to Echard at first gave to the incumbent
the right to fix the meaning of Scripture at the Pontifical court. It has since
come to have the duty of comparing all matters with the catholic doctrine
before they are presented to the pope, selecting preachers for certain occa-
sions, conferring the doctors' degree, etc. Wetzer-Welte avoids giving offence
to the Dominicans by making the ambiguous statement, III. 1934, that Domi-
nic gewissermassen der erste Mag. palatii wurde.
2 Hauck, IV. 391-394.
422 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
was introduced into England, and at once settled in Ox-
ford. 1 The Blackfriars Bridge, London, carries in its name
the memory of their great friary in that city.
The first General Chapter was held 1220 in Bologna.
Dominic preached with much zeal in Northern Italy. He
died, lying on ashes, at Bologna, Aug. 6, 1221, and lies buried
there in the convent of St. Nicholas, which has been adorned
by the art of Nicholas of Pisa and Michael Angelo. As com-
pared with the speedy papal recognition of Francis and
Anthony of Padua, the canonization of the Spanish saint
followed tardily, thirteen years after his death, July 13, 1234. 2
At the time of Dominic's death, the preaching friars had
sixty convents scattered in the provinces of Provence, North-
ern France, Spain, Lombardy, Italy, England, Germany,
and Hungary, each of which held its own chapter yearly. To
these eight provinces, by 1228, four others had been added,
Poland, Denmark, Greece, and Jerusalem. 3 Combined they
made up the General Chapter. Each of the provinces was
presided over by a provincial or provincial prior, and the
convents by a prior or sub prior. The title and dignity
of abbot were not assumed. At the head of the whole
body stands a grand-master. 4 Privilege after privilege was
conferred by the Holy See, including the important right
to preach anywhere and everywhere. 6 The constitutions
of 1228 are the earliest we possess, but they are not the
oldest. They were revised under Raymund de Pefiaforte,
the third general. 6
Mendicancy was made the rule of the order at the first
1 At the suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII., the Domini-
cans had 58 houses in England (Gasquet, p. 237), or 57 according to Addis
and Scannell, Diet., p. 301.
2 Potthast, I. 810.
8 See the Constitution of 1228, Denifle, pp. 212, 215.
4 Magister generalis. In 1862 Pius IX. limited his tenure of office to
twelve years. Since 1272 he has lived at St. Maria sopra Minerva in
Rome.
5 May 16, 1227. See Potthast, I. 684. Denifle makes much of this point,
pp. 176-180.
6 Denifle gives the best edition in Archlv for 1885, pp. 193-227.
72. ST. DOMINIC AND THE DOMINICANS. 423
General Chapter, 1220. 1 The example of St. Francis was
followed, and the order, as well as the individual monk,
renounced all right to possess property. The mendicant
feature was, however, never emphasized as among the Fran-
ciscans. It was not a matter of conscience with the Domini-
cans, and the order was never involved in divisions over the
question of holding property. The obligation of corporate
poverty was wholly removed by Sixtus IV., 1477. Dominic's
last exhortation to his followers was that " they should have
love, do humble service, and live in voluntary poverty." 2
But the precept never seems to have been taken much to
heart by them.
Unlike the man of Assisi, Dominic did not combine
manual labor with the other employments of his monks.
For work with their hands he substituted study and preach-
ing. The Dominicans were the first monastics to adopt
definite rules of study. When Dominic founded St. Jacques
in Paris, and sent seventeen of his order to man that convent,
he instructed them to "study and preach." Cells were
constructed at Toulouse for study. 3 A theological course
of four years in philosophy and theology was required be-
fore a license was given to preach, 4 and three years more of
theological study followed it.
Preaching and the saving of souls were defined as the
chief aim of the order. 5 Humbert de Romanis, its fifth
1 Denifle, pp. 181 sqq. , states that the idea of poverty was in "Dominic's mind
before Honorius sanctioned the order, and that it was thoroughly as original
with him as it was with Francis. This view seems to be contradicted by the bull
of Honorius, 1216, which confirms Dominic and his followers in the possession
of goods. Jordanus, c. 27, states that the principle of poverty was adopted that
the preachers might be freed from the care of earthly goods, ne predicationis
impediretur officium sollicitudine terrenorum. Francis adopted this principle
as a means of personal sanctification ; Dominic, in order that he and his
followers might give themselves up unreservedly to the work of saving souls.
2 Caritatem habete, humilitatem servite, pauperitatem voluntariam possi-
dete. 3 Denifle, pp. 185 sqq.
4 Nullus fiat publicus doctor, nisi per 4 annos ad minus theologiam
audierit. Const., 1228, IT. 30.
6 Ordo noster specialiter ob prcedicationem et animarum salutem ab initio
institutus. Prol. to Constitution of 1228.
424 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
general, declared that the end of the order was not study,
but that study was most necessary for preaching and the
salvation of souls. Study, said another, is ordained for
preaching, and preaching for the salvation of men, and this
is the final end. 1 No one was permitted to preach outside
the cloister until he was twenty-five. 2 And for preaching they
were not to receive money or other gifts, except food. As
Vincent Ferrer and Savonarola were the most renowned of
the Dominican preachers of the Middle Ages, so Lacordaire
was their most renowned orator in the nineteenth century.
The mission of the Dominicans was predominantly with the
upper classes. They represented the patrician element
among the orders.
The annals of the Inquisition give to the Dominican order
large space. The Dominicans were the most prominent and
zealous "inquisitors of heretical depravity." Dante had this
in mind when he characterized Dominic as " Good to his
friends, dreadful to his enemies," "Benigno ai suoi ed ai ni-
mici crudo." 3
In 1232 the conduct of the Inquisition was largely com-
mitted to their care. Northern France, Spain, and Ger-
many fell to their lot. 4 The stern Torquemada was a Do-
minican, and the atrocious measures which were afterwards
employed to spy out and punish ecclesiastical dissent, have
left an indelible blot upon the name of the order. The stu-
dent of history must regard those efforts to maintain the
orthodox faith as heartless, even though it may not have oc-
curred to the participants to so consider them. The order's
device, given by Honorius, was a dog bearing a lighted torch
in his mouth, the dog to watch, the torch to illuminate the
world. The picture in their convent S. Maria Novella, at
Florence, represents the place the order came to occupy as
hunters of heretics. It portrays dogs dressed in the Domini-
can colors, black and white, chasing away foxes, which stand for
i Quoted by Denifle, p. 190. 2 Const. II. 31-33. Paradiso, XII.
*See Potthast, II. 9386, 9388 (Gregory IX., 1234), etc. The Franciscans
were made inquisitors in Italy and Southern France. See chapter on the
Inquisition.
72. ST. DOMINIC AND THE DOMINICANS. 425
heretics, while pope and emperor, enthroned and surrounded
by counsellors, look on with satisfaction at the scene. It
was in connection with his effort to exterminate heresy that
Dominic founded, in 1220, the " soldiery of Christ," com-
posed of men and women, married and unmarried. Later,
the order called itself the Brothers and Sisters of Penitence,
or the Third Order, or Tertiaries of St. Dominic. As was
the case with the Franciscan Tertiaries, some of them lived
a conventual life.
The rosary also had a prominent place in the history of
the Dominicans. An untrustworthy tradition assigns to
Dominic its first use. During the crusades against the Albi-
genses, Mary, so the story runs, appeared to Dominic, and
bade him use the rosary as a means for the conversion of the
heretics. It consists of fifteen pater nosters and one hun-
dred and fifty ave Marias, told off in beads. The Domini-
cans early became devotees of the rosary, but soon had
rivals in the Carmelites for the honor of being the first to
introduce it. The notorious Dominican inquisitor and
hunter of witches, Jacob Sprenger, founded the first confra-
ternity of the rosary. Pius V. ascribed the victory of
Lepanto, 1571, to its use. In recent times Pius IX. and
Leo XIII. have been ardent devotees of the rosary. Leo, in
his encyclical of Sept. 1, 1883, ascribed its introduction to
" the great Dominic, as a balm for the wounds of his con-
temporaries." This encyclical represents Mary as "placed
on the highest summit of power and glory in heaven . . .
who is to be besought that, by her intercession, her devout
Son may be appeased and softened as to the evils which
afflict us." 1
1 Leo commended the rosary in repeated encyclicals, Aug. 30, 1884, 1891, etc.,
coupling plenary indulgence for sin with its use. He also ordered the title
regina sanctissimi rosarii, "queen of the most holy rosary," inserted into the
liturgy of Loreto. On the history of the rosary, see Lea, Hist, of Auric.
Conf., III. 484 sqq., and especially the dissertation St. Dominikus und der
JRosenkranz, by the Franciscan, Heribert Holzapfel. This writer declares,
point blank, that the rosary was not invented nor propagated by Dominic.
There is no reference to it in the original Constitution of 1228, which contains
detailed prescriptions concerning prayer and the worship of the Virgin, nor
426 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Leo XIII. paid highest honor to the Dominicans when he
pronounced Thomas Aquinas the authoritative teacher of
Catholic theology and morals, and the patron of Catholic
schools.
in any of the eighteen biographical notices of the thirteenth century. Hol-
zapfel makes the statement, p. 12, that the entire thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries know nothing of any association whatsoever of St. Dominic with the
rosary. Sixtus IV., 1478, was the first pope to commend the rosary; but
Sixtus does not associate it with the name of Dominic. Such association
began with Leo X. What has become of the author of this bold denial of
the distinct statement of Leo XIII. in his encyclical of ten years before,
September, 1883, I do not know. Holzapfel distinctly asserts his oppo-
sition to the papal deliverances on the rosary, when he says, p. 37, " High
as the regard is in which the Catholic holds the authority of Peter's suc-
cessors in religious things, he must be equally on his guard against extending
that authority to every possible question." Perhaps Father Holzapfel's
pamphlet points to the existence of a remainder of the hot feeling which
used to exist between the Thomists and Scotists.
CHAPTER IX.
MISSIONS.
73. Literature and General Survey.
LITERATURE: I. FOR NORTHEASTERN GERMANY. H. HAHN : Gesch. d. kathol.
Mission, 5 vols., Col., 1857-1865. G. F. MACLEAR : Hist, of Christ. Mis-
sions during the M. A., London, 1863. C. A. H. KALKAR : Gesch. d.
rom.-kathol. Mission, German trans., Erlang., 1867. TH. SMITH: Med.
Missions, Edinburg, 1880. P. TSCHACKERT : Einfuhrung d. Christen-
thums in Preussen, in Herzog, IX. 25 sqq. Lives of Otto of Bamberg by
EBO and HERBORD (contemporaries) in Jaffe' ; Bibl. Rerum Germanic.,
Berlin, 1869, vol. V. trans, in Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit,
Leipzig, 1869. Otto's Letters in Migne, vol. 173. Mod. Lives by F.
X. SULZBECK, Regensb., 1865, and J. A. ZIMMERMANN, Freib. ira Br.,
1875. For copious lit. see POTTHAST : Bibl. Hist., II. 1504 sq. For
VICELINUS, see Chronica Slavorum Helmodi (a friend of Vicelinus), ed.
by PERTZ, Hann., 1868. Trans, by WATTENBACH in Geschichtschreiber
der deutschen Vorzeit, Leipzig, 1888. WINTER : Die Prdmonstratenser
d. 12ten Jahrhunderts und ihre Bedeutung fur das nordostl. Deutsch-
land. Ein Beitrag zur Gesch. der Christianisirung und Germanisirung
des Wendenlandes, Leipzig, 1865. Also Die Cisterzienser des nordostl.
Deutschlands,3vo\s.,Gotha, 1868. E. O. SCHULZE : D. Kolonisierung
und Germanisirung der Gebiete zw. Saale und Elbe, Leipzig, 1896.
EDMUND KRAUSCH : Kirchengesch. der Wendenlande, Paderb., 1902.
HAUCK: 111.69-150,623-655. RAN KE : Weltgesch., VIII. 455-480. The
arts. ALBERT OF RIGA, OTTO VON BAMBERG, VICELINUS, and WENDEN
in Wetzer-Welte and Herzog. See Lit. under Teutonic Knights, p. 296.
II. FOR THE MOHAMMEDANS. Works on FRANCIS D'Assisi, see 69. For
RAYMUNDUS LULLUS : Beati Raymundi Lulli doctoris illuminati et marty-
risopera, ed.by JOHNSALZINGER, Mainz, 1721-1742, 10 vols. (VII., X. want-
ing). His Ars magna (opera quce ad artem universalem pertinent), Strass-
burg, 1598. Last ed., 1651. Recent ed. of his Poems Obras rimadas,
Palma, 1859. For the ed., of Raymund's works publ. at Palma but not
completed see Wetzer-Welte, Raim. Lullus, X. 747-749. Lives by PER-
ROQUET,Vendome, 1667; Low, Halle, 1830. *A. HELFFERICH: R.Lullund
die Anfdnge der Catalonischen Literatur, Berlin, 1858 ; W. BRAMBACH,
Karlsr., 1893; ANDRE, Paris, 1900. *S. M. ZWEMER: RaymundLull, First
Missionary to the Moslems, New York, 1902. LEA : Hist, of the Inqnis. ,
III. 563-590. RE use H: Der Index, etc., I. 26-33. ZOCKLER, in Her-
zog, XI. 706-716.
427
428 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
III. FOR THE MONGOLS. D'OnsoN : Hist, des Mongols, Paris, 1824. H. H.
HOWORTH : Hist, of the Mongols, 3 vols., London, 1876-1880. ABBE
Hue : Le Christianisme en Chine, en Tartare et en Thibet, Paris, 1857.
KULB: Gesch. der Missionsreisen nach der Mongolei wdhrend des ISten
und 14ten Jahrhunderts, 3 vols., Regensb., 1860. COL. HENRY YULE :
Travels and Life of Marco Polo, London, 1871 ; Rev. ed. by H. CORDIER,
New York, 1903. R. K. DOUGLAS (Prof, of Chinese in King's Col.,
London): Life of Jenghiz Khan. GIBBON, chaps. XLVII., LXIV. ;
RANKE, VIII. 417-455 ; and arts. RCBRUQUIS, Mongolen, etc., in Herzog,
Wetzer-Welte.
THE missionary operations of this period display little of
the zeal of the great missionary age of Augustine, Columba,
and Boniface, and less of achievement. The explanation is
to be found in the ambitions which controlled the mediaeval
church and in the dangers by which Europe was threatened
from without. In the conquest of sacred localities, the Cru-
sades offered a substitute for the conversion of non-Christian
peoples. The effort of the papacy to gain supreme control
over all mundane affairs in Western Christendom, also filled
the eye of the Church. These two movements almost drained
her religious energies to the full. On the other hand the
Mongols, or Tartars, breaking forth from Central Asia with
the fierceness of evening wolves, filled all Europe with dread,
and one of the chief concerns of the thirteenth century was to
check their advance into the central part of the continent.
The heretical sects in Southern France threatened the unity
of the Church and also demanded a share of attention which
might otherwise have been given to efforts for the conversion
of the heathen.
Two new agencies come into view, the commercial trader
and the colonist, corresponding in this century to the ships
and trains of modern commerce and the labors of the geo-
graphical explorer in Africa and other countries. Along the
shores of the Baltic, at times, and in Asia the tradesman and
the explorer went in advance of the missionary or along the
same routes. And in the effort to subdue the barbarous
tribes of Northeastern Germany to the rules of Christen-
dom, the sword and colonization played as large a part as
spiritual measures.
74. MISSIONS IN NORTHEASTERN GERMANY. 429
The missionary history of the age has three chapters,
among the pagan peoples of Northeastern Germany and along
the Baltic as far as Riga, among the Mohammedans of North-
ern Africa, and among the Mongols in Central and Eastern
Asia. The chief missionaries whose names have survived are
Otto of Bamberg and Vicelinus who labored in Northeastern
Europe, Rubruquis, and John of Monte Corvino who travelled
through Asia, Francis d'Assisi and Raymundus Lullus who
preached in Africa.
The treatment which the Jews received at the hand of the
Church also properly belongs here.
74. Missions in Northeastern G-ermany.
At the beginning of this period the Wends, 1 who were of
Slavic origin, were the ruling population in the provinces
along the Baltic from Liibeck to Riga with elements in the
territory now covered by Pommerania, Brandenburg inter-
mingled, and parts of Saxony, which were neither German
nor Slavic but Lithuanian. 2 Charlemagne did not attempt
conquest beyond the river Elbe. The bishoprics of Wiirz-
burg, Mainz, Halberstadt, Verden, and Bremen-Hamburg,
bordering on the territories of these tribes, had done little or
nothing for their conversion. Under Otto I. Havelberg,
Meissen, Merseburg, and other dioceses were established to
prosecute this work. At the synod of Ravenna, 967, Otto
made the premature boast that the Wends had been con-
verted.
The only personality that looms out above the monoto-
nous level of Wendish history is Gottschalk, who was con-
verted in England and bound together a number of tribes
in an extensive empire. He was interested in the conversion
1 See 60. Tacitus calls the Wends Venedi, a name which seems to
come from the Slavonic voda, or the Lithuanian wandu, meaning "water,"
and referring to the low and often marshy lands they occupied.
2 The two translations of Luther's catechism, 1545, 1561, into the language
of this people seem to point to their Lithuanian origin, Tschackert in Herzog,
XVI. 26.
THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
of his people, and churches and convents were built at Meck-
lenburg, Liibeck, Oldenburg, and other centres. But with
Gottschalk's murder, in 1066, the realm fell to pieces and the
Wend tribes from that time on became the object of con-
quest to the dukes of Poland and Saxony. Attempts to
Christianize them were met with violent resistance. Wends
and Germans hated one another. 1 These barbarous tribes
practised polygamy, infanticide, 2 burned the bodies of their
dead, had their sacred springs, graves, and idols.
Two centuries were required to bring the territories occu-
pied by these peoples, and now for the most part inhabited
by Germans, under the sway of the Church. The measures
employed were the instructions of the missionary, the sword
as wielded by the Teutonic Knights, and the colonization of
the lands with German colonists. The sacraments and ritual
of the Church were put in the forefront as conditions of
union with the Church. The abolition of barbarous customs
was also insisted upon. The bishopric and the convent were
made the spiritual citadels of the newly evangelized dis-
tricts.
The first to labor among the Wends, who was actuated by
true missionary zeal, was the Spanish Cistercian, Bernard.
He was without any knowledge of the language and his bare
feet and rude monastic garb were little adapted to give him
an entrance to the people whose priests were well clad.
Bernard was followed by Otto, bishop of Bamberg, 1102-
1139, who made his first tour at Bernard's instance. He won
the title of Apostle of Pommerania. In 1124 he set his face
towards the country, furnished with the blessing of Honorius
II. and well supplied with clerical helpers. He won the
good-will of the Pommeranian duke, Wratislaw, who, in his
youth, as a prisoner of war, had received baptism. The bap-
1 Hauck gives illustrations of the cruelties of the two peoples in time of
war, III. 90 sqq.
2 They thought nothing of strangling girls when there were a number born
to the same mother. Si plures filias aliqua genuisset, ut cetera facilius
providerent, nliquas ex eis jugulabant, pro nihilo ducentes parricidium.
Herbord, II. 16
74. MISSIONS IN NORTHEASTERN GERMANY. 431
tism of seven thousand at Pyritz has a special interest from
its bearing on the practice of immersion followed at that time.
Tanks were sunk into the earth, the rims, rising knee high
above the ground. Into these, as the chronicler reports, 1 it
was easy to descend. Tent-coverings were drawn over each
of them. Otto instructed the people in the seven sacraments 2
and insisted upon the abandonment of polygamy and infan-
ticide.
At Stettin he destroyed the temple of the god Triglar, and
sent the triple head of the idol to Rome as a sign of the tri-
umph of the cross.
In 1128 Otto made a second tour to Pommerania. He spoke
through an interpreter. His instructions were followed by
the destruction of temples and the erection of churches. He
showed his interest in the material as well as spiritual
well-being of the people and introduced the vine into the
country. 3 His work was continued by Norbert of Magde-
burg and the Premonstrants.
Vicelinus, d. 1154, the next most important name in the
history of missions among the Wends, preached in the terri-
tory now covered by Holstein and the adjoining districts.
He had spent three years in study at Paris and was commis-
sioned to his work by Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen-Ham-
burg. The fierce wars of Albert the Bear, of North Saxony,
1133-1170, and Henry the Lion, 1142-1163, against the
Wagrians and Abotrites, the native tribes, were little adapted
to prepare the way for Christianity. Vicelinus founded the
important convent of Segeberg which became a centre of
training for missionaries. Liibeck accepted Christianity, and
in 1148 Vicelinus was ordained bishop of Oldenburg.
The German missionaries went as far as Riga. The sword
played a prominent part in the reduction of the local tribes.
1 Facilis erat in aquam descendere, Herbord, II. 16. The detailed descrip-
tion of the baptismal scenes leaves not a particle of doubt that immersion was
practised.
2 This is the earliest notice of the seven sacraments, provided Herbord's re-
port is not interpolated.
* Herbord, II. 41.
432 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Under papal sanction, crusade followed crusade. The Livo-
nians received their first knowledge of Christianity through
Meinhard, d. 1196, l who had been trained at Segeberg. He
had been preceded by Bremen merchants and set forth on
his mission in a Bremen merchant vessel. He was ordained
bishop of the new diocese of Uexkull whose name was
changed in 1202 to the diocese of Riga.
Meinhard's successor, the Cistercian Berthold, sought at
first to win his way by instruction and works of charity, but
was driven away by violence. He returned in 1198, at the
head of a crusade which Coelestin had ordered. After his
death on the field of battle his successor, bishop Albert of
Apeldern, entered the country in 1199 at the head of another
army. The lands were then thrown open to colonists.
With the sanction of Innocent III., Albert founded the order
of the Brothers of the Sword. Their campaigns opened the
way for the church in Esthaonia and Senegallen. In 1224
the see of Dorpat was erected, which has given its name to
the university of Dorpat.
Eastern Prussia, lying along the Weichsel, was visited in
1207 by the German abbot, Gottfried. Two of the native
princes were converted by Christian, a monk from Pomme-
rania, donated their lands to the Church, and travelled to
Rome, where they received baptism. Christian was made
bishop of Prussia between 1212 and 1215. An invitation sent
to the Teutonic Knights to aid in the conversion of the tribes
was accepted by their grand-master, Hermann of Salza, in
1228. In 1217 Honorius III. had ordered a crusade, and
in 1230 Gregory IX. renewed the order. The Teutonic
Knights were ready enough to further religious encroachment
by the sword, promised, as they were, a large share in the
conquered lands. From 1230 to 1283 they carried on con-
tinual wars. They established themselves securely by build-
ing fortified towns such as Kulm and Thorn, 1231, and
Konigsberg, 1255. A stream of German colonists followed
1 Gregory IX., as late as 1237, calls this people pagans, pagani Livonice.
Potthast, 10383.
75. MISSIONS AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. 433
where they conquered. In 1243 Innocent IV. divided Prus-
sia into four sees, Kulm, Pomesania, Sameland, and Errae-
land. It was arranged that the bishops were to have
one-third of the conquered territory. In 1308 the German
Knights seized Danzig at the mouth of the Weichsel and a
year later established their headquarters at Marienburg. 1
By the battle of Tannenberg, 1410, and the Peace of Thorn,
1466, they lost Prussia west of the Weichsel, and thereafter
their possessions were confined to Eastern Prussia. The
history of the order closed when the grand-master, Albrecht
of Brandenburg, accepted the Reformation and made the
duchy hereditary in his family.
75. Missions among the Mohammedans.
Two important names are associated with the missions
among the Mohammedans, Francis of Assisi and Raymundus
Lullus, and with their labors, which were without any
permanent results, the subject is exhausted. The Crusades
were adapted to widen the gulf between the Christians and
the Mohammedans, and to close more tightly the ear of the
followers of the False Prophet to the appeals of the Christian
emissary.
Franciscan friars went in 1213 to Morocco and received
the martyr's crown, but left no impression upon the Moham-
medans. 2 St. Francis made his tour to Syria and Egypt in
1219, accompanied by eleven companions. The accounts are
meagre and uncertain. 3 Francis landed at Acre and pro-
ceeded to the crusading camp under the walls of Damietta,
where he is represented as preaching before the sultan and
to the Mohammedan troops. The story is told that the
1 Ranke, VIII. 469, regards the fabric of the Teutonic Knights as having
offered the only effective check against the invasion of Central Europe by
the Mongols.
2 Miiller, Anfange des Minoritenordens, 207 sqq., has set this mission
beyond doubt.
8 Jacob of Vitry, Hist. Occ., 32, and Giordano di Giano are our chief
authorities. Sabatier, in his Life of Francis, accepts the testimony, but dis-
misses the tour in a few lines.
2 1-
434 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
sultan was so much touched by Francis' preaching that he
gave the Franciscan friars admission to the Holy Sepulchre,
without payment of tribute.
Raymundus Lullus, 1235?-1315, devoted his life to the
conversion of Mohammedans and attested his zeal by a
martyrs death. He was one of the most noteworthy figures
produced during the Middle Ages in Southwestern Europe.
He made three missionary tours to Africa and originated the
scheme for establishing chairs at the universities to teach
the Oriental languages and train missionaries. He also
wrote many tracts with the aim of convincing unbelievers of
the truth of Christianity.
Lullus was born in Palma on the island of Majorca. His
father had gained distinction by helping to wrest the Balearic
islands from the Saracens. The son married and had chil-
dren, but led a gay and licentious life at court and devoted
his poetic gifts to erotic sonnets. At the age of thirty -one
he was arrested in his wild career by the sight of a cancer
on the breast of a woman, one of the objects of his passion,
whom he pursued into a church, and who suddenly exposed
her disease. He made a pilgrimage to Campostella, and
retired to Mt. Randa on his native island. Here he spent
five years in seclusion, and in 1272 entered the third order
of St. Francis. He became interested in the conversion of
Mohammedans and other infidels and studied Arabic under a
Moor whom he had redeemed from slavery. A system of
knowledge was revealed to him which he called "the Uni-
versal Science," ars magna or ars generalis. With the aid of
the king of Aragon he founded, in 1276 on Majorca, a college
under the control of the Franciscans for the training of
missionaries in the Arabic and Syriac tongues.
Lullus went to Paris to study and to develop his Univer-
sal Science. At a later period he returned and delivered
lectures there. In 1286 he went to Rome to press his
missionary plans, but failed to gain the pope's favor. In
1292 he set sail on a missionary tour to Africa from Genoa.
In Tunis he endeavored in vain to engage the Mohammedan
scholars in a public disputation. A tumult arose and Lullus
75. MISSIONS AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. 435
narrowly escaped with his life. Returning to Europe, he
again sought to win the favor of the pope, but in vain. In
1309 he sailed the second time for Tunis, and again he sought
to engage the Mohammedans in disputation. Offered honors
if he would turn Mohammedan, he said, " And I promise
you, if you will turn and believe on Jesus Christ, abundant
riches and eternal life."
Again violently forced to leave Africa, Lullus laid his
plans before Clement V. and the council of Vienne, 1311.
Here he presented a refutation of the philosophy of Aver-
rhoes and pressed the creation of academic chairs for the
Oriental languages. Such chairs were ordered erected at
Avignon, Paris, Oxford, Salamanca, and Bologna to teach
Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. 1
Although nearly eighty years old the indefatigable mis-
sionary again set out for Tunis. His preaching at Bougia led,
as before, to tumults, and Lullus was dragged outside of the
city and stoned. Left half dead, he was rescued by Chris-
tian seamen, put on board a ship, and died at sea. His bones
are preserved at Palma.
For a period of nearly fifty years this remarkable man
had advocated measures for carrying the Gospel to the
Mohammedans. No impression, so far as we know, was
made by his preaching or by his apologetic writings upon
unbelievers, Jew or Mohammedan, but with his name will
always be associated the new idea of missionary institutes
where men, proposing to dedicate themselves to a missionary
career, might be trained in foreign languages. But Lullus
was more than a glowing advocate of missions. He was a
poet and an expert scholastic thinker. 2 Spain has produced
1 The object of the chairs was declared to be to further the exposition of the
Scriptures and the conversion of unbelievers. See Hefele, VI. 545. A little
earlier the pamphleteer Peter Dubois had urged it as the pope's duty to
establish institutes for the study of the Oriental languages as it was his duty
to see that the Gospel was preached to all peoples. See Scholz, Die
Publizistik zur Zeit Philipps des Schonen, 427-431.
2 According to the catalogue in the Escurial prepared by D. Arias de
Loyola, Lullus. wrote 410 tracts, most of which exist only in MS., and are
distributed among the libraries of Europe. Of these, 46 are controversial
436 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
no Schoolman so famous. He was a prolific author, and
in his application of thought to the physical sciences, he
has been compared to his fellow Franciscan, Roger
Bacon. 1
His Universal Science he applied to medicine and law,
astrology and geography, grammar and rhetoric, as well as
to the solution of theological problems. 2 It was a key to
all the departments of thought, celestial and terrestrial.
Ideas he represented by letters of the alphabet which were
placed in circles and other mathematical diagrams. By
the turning of the circles and shifting of lines these ideas
fall into relations which display a system of truth. The
word " God," for example, was thus brought into relation
with nine letters, B-K, which represented nine qualities:
goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, volition, virtue,
truth, and glory. Or the letters B-K represented nine ques-
tions, such as, what, quid; from what, de quo ; why, quare;
how much, quantum. Being applied to God, they afford
valid definitions, such as " God's existence is a necessity."
This kaleidoscopic method, it is not improbable, Lullus
drew from Jewish and Arabic sources, and he himself called
it Cabalistic.
The philosophy of Lullus found a number of adherents
who were called Lullists. It was taught at the universities
of Valencia and Aragon. Giordano Bruno drew from it.
Eymericus, the inquisitor, became the bitter foe of the
Lullists, arraigned their leader's teachings before the Roman
court, and exhibited a bull of Gregory XL (1372) condemn-
works against the Mohammedans, Jews, and Averrhoists. Lea speaks of
Lullus " as perhaps the most voluminous author on record." III. 681.
1 Reuter, Gesch. der Aufklarung, II. 95 sq.
2 In his work on the miracles of heaven and earth, de miraculis cceli et
mundi, he represents a father leading his son through woods and across
fields, over deserts and through cities, among plants and animals, into
heaven and hell, and pointing out the wonders they saw. In his Blan-
querna magister christiance perfectionis he presents an ethical drama in
which the hero is introduced to all stations of religious life, monk, abbot,
bishop, cardinal, and pope, and at last gives up the tiara to retire to the
seclusion of a convent.
76. MISSIONS AMONG THE MONGOLS. 437
ing them as heretical. 1 Philip II. read some of the Major-
can's writings and left annotated copies in the Escurial
library. Lullus' works were included in the Index of
Paul IV., 1559, but ordered removed from the list by the
council of Trent. A papal decision of 1619 forbade Lullus'
doctrine as dangerous. In 1847 Pius IX. approved an
office for the " holy Raymundus Lullus " in Majorca,
where he is looked upon as a saint. The Franciscans have,
since the time of Leo X., commemorated the Spaniard's
memory in their Breviary.
76. Missions among the Mongols.
Central Asia and what is now the Chinese Empire were
almost as unknown to Western Europe in the twelfth cen-
tury as the lake region of Central Africa was before the
journeys of Speke, Livingstone, and Stanley. To the Nes-
torians, with their schools at Edessa and Nisibis, naturally
belonged the task of spreading the Gospel in Central and
Eastern Asia. They went as far as China, but after the
ninth century their schools declined and a period of stagna-
tion set in. Individual Nestorians reached positions of in-
fluence in Asiatic courts as councillors or physicians and
Nestorian women became mothers of Mongol chiefs. But
no Asiatic tribe adopted their creed.
In the twelfth century the brilliant delusion gained cur-
rency throughout Europe of the existence in Central Asia of
a powerful Christian theocracy, ruled over by the Presbyter
John, usually called Prester-John. 2 The wildest rumors were
1 The genuineness of this bull has been a subject of much controversy.
Commissions were even appointed by later popes to investigate the matter,
and the bull, with other documents originating with Gregory, was not found.
Hergenrother pronounces for its genuineness, Kirchengesch., II. 540. Ey-
mericus ascribed Lullus' teachings to the suggestion of the devil, and declared
that Lullus maintained the erroneous proposition that "all points of faith
and the sacraments, and the power of the pope may be proved by reasoning,
necessary, demonstrative, and evident."
2 G. Oppert, D. Presbyter Johannes in Sage u. Gesch., Berlin, 1864, 2d
ed. 1870. Brunet, La legende du Pretre-Jean, Bordeaux, 1877. Zarncke,
D. Priester- Johannes, Leipzig, 1879.
438 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
spread concerning this mysterious personage who was said to
combine the offices of king and priest. According to Otto of
Freisingen, a certain bishop of Gabala in 1145 had brought
Eugenius III. the information that he was a Nestorian Chris-
tian, was descended from one of the three Wise Men, and
had defeated the Mohammedans in a great battle. 1 A letter,
purporting to come from this ruler and addressed to the
Emperor Manuel of Constantinople, related that John re-
ceived tribute from seventy kings, and had among his sub-
jects the ten tribes of Israel, entertained at his table daily
twelve archbishops and twenty bishops, and that his kingdom
was overflowing with milk and honey. 2 Gradually his do-
minions were reported to extend to Abyssinia and India.
To put themselves into communication with this wonder-
ful personage and bring him into subjection to Rome engaged
the serious attention of several popes. Alexander III., in
1177, sent his physician Philip with commission to inform
the king of the faith of Western ' Christendom. He also
addressed him in a letter as his "most dear son in Christ,
John, king of the Indies and most holy of priests." The
illusion abated as serious efforts to find the kingdom were
made. Rubruquis wrote back to Europe from the region
where John was reported to have ruled that few could be
found who knew anything about Prester-John and that the
stories which had been told were greatly exaggerated. He
added that a certain ruler, Coirchan, had been followed by a
Nestorian shepherd, called John. It has been conjectured by
Oppert that the word " Coirchan," through the Syrian Ju-
chanan, became known as John in Europe. A prince of that
name whom the Chinese call Tuliu Tasha fled from China
westwards, and established a kingdom in Central Asia. Nesto-
rians were among his subjects. Chinese tradition has it that
1 Chronicon, VII. 33. Otto also reports the bishop of Gabala as declaring
that out of respect for his ancestors, the Magians, who had worshipped at the
cradle of the Redeemer, John had started with an army to relieve Jerusalem,
but for want of boats got no further than the Tigris.
2 The letter must have had an extensive circulation, as it exists in more
than 100 MSS., 13 in Paris, 15 in Munich, 8 in the British Museum, etc.
76. MISSIONS AMONG THE MONGOLS. 439
the prince was a Buddhist. Thus dwindles away a legend
which, to use Gibbon's language, "long amused the credu-
lity of Europe."
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Asia witnessed
the establishment of the vast Mongol empire. Scarcely ever
has military genius among uncivilized peoples had more
wonderful display th 
